Your 2025 Leadership Review + How to Set Up a No Bullsh!t 2026

Hey there and welcome to episode 381 of the No Bullshit Leadership Podcast. This week's episode, your 2025 leadership review, and how to set up a No Bullshit 2026. Welcome to the No Bullshit Leadership Podcast. In a world where knowledge has become a commodity, this podcast is designed to give you something more. Access to the experience of a successful CEO who has already walked the path. To join your host Martin Moore, who will unlock and bring to life your own leadership experiences and accelerate your journey to leadership excellence. Today, I'm going to take you through a clear process to help you review your leadership performance in 2025. What's an all? No Bullshit. And then, set your runway up for 2026. This episode was inspired by the incredible honesty inside our No Bullshit Leaders Club when we ran their annual review session last week. Now the No Bullshit Leaders Club is our community group where the alumni from our leadership beyond the theory program continue their leadership journey working with me and M and supporting and learning from each other. Now, of course, the club got the full Palava. They got the deep dive workbook, structured reflection prompts and guided question session with me live. In this episode though, I'm going to give you the essentials. Like the part that's going to shift your leadership trajectory heading into 2026. So get some note paper and a pen and write this stuff down. This is the perfect moment to look back with clarity. If you wait until January, you will have conveniently forgotten the trauma that you went through in 2025. After a few weeks off, everything's going to feel, you know, sort of okay again. So you want to tap into this feeling that you have now where you're limping into the end of the year, exhausted from all of the things you did in 2025. So let's get into it. There are four review areas we're going to talk about for your 2025 review. Now, the first is the value that you actually delivered. Value is at the centre of the no bullshed leadership model. And even though value comes in many shapes and sizes, as a leader, this has to be your primary focus. It has to be above everything else, the thing that you're driving towards every single day. So the first question is where did you really deliver value? Now we were all busy, we all worked really hard, we all did the heaps of shit. But where did you materially improve results or performance in 2025? And I want you to pick two achievements that would genuinely belong on your CV. So remember, this has to be value, not just activity. There were heaps of things you did. There were meetings that you went to that you probably shouldn't have attended. There was a whole lot of work that you did that should have been done by other people. And there were probably a bunch of urgent requests from your boss who said just do it. So the things you did aren't necessarily the things that created value. Here's the thing, if you can't quantify it, then you need to qualify it very clearly. If you can't qualify clearly, then guess what it probably didn't happen. Unless you can articulate very, very clearly what that achievement was, what difference it made and what result came out the back end, then it probably doesn't qualify. Now this can be extremely confronting because you can look back on a whole year of enormous hard work and realise that you really didn't bank that much value for your team or for your company. So here's a couple of examples that you might want to go after. I improved delivery reliability from 62% to 94% within six months. Now that statement has a whole lot behind it right, it's very clear, it's quantified, it has timeframes and it's something that's auditable or something like this. I reduced project cycle times by 30% by implementing strong single point account abilities. I want you to have a really good think about what the outcomes were from the activity you undertook. What actually came out the back end, what value did you produce for the company? It's really important that you start to get your head around this type of thinking, because when we come to our plan for 2026, this is going to be fundamental to how we set the year up. Don't worry if you didn't solve World Hunger in 2025, it's okay, but what we need to think about in 2026 is how are we going to take this to move forward to set a bit of frame and go after the right things. The second area I want to have a look at is what you avoided, okay, so we know what we did in terms of achievement and value, what did you avoid? What was the tough stuff that you managed to stay away from? The sorts of things that I always look at for leaders is, which conversations did you avoid? You're going to know in your heart of hearts, there are certain conversations you probably should have had that you decided not to, and then your brain came to the rescue with a bunch of rationalizations that said, "You know what, Marty, you probably don't need to do that." So you parked it, but if you look back now, there's probably a couple of key moments where you didn't have a conversation that you should have had, and now you wish you'd done it. You wish you'd have the strength to step in and hold the conversation when it needs to be done. Where did you lower the standard because it was easier to do so? What did you walk past and just say, "You know, it's only a little thing I won't worry about it," or, "I don't have time to deal with that now," or, "I don't want to demotivate my people." There may have been a lot of things that you walked past where you saw a lowering of the standard, but it was just easier to let it go. And then, which field of direct reports managed to breeze through the year without being held to account? We've all got one of those, right? That direct report who's just not that good, right? They're not great, they're not terrible, but if we're paying attention, we'll see that they are consistently slipping below our minimum acceptable standard. So these are the types of things we tend to avoid and there's probably going to be a hundred others as well, but if you can nail the avoidance piece, you're going to have unlimited power to improve in the coming year. Right, the third question is, "How did you perform under pressure?" It's really important as you go up the chain as a leader, that you learn to handle a pressure that comes with a territory, and it gets greater and greater and greater at higher levels. Pressure reveals character. It exposes your instinctive leadership level. So ask yourself now in terms of 2025. What were the things that got you rattled? The cause you were a lot of grief and uncertainty? Where were you able to hold your nerve and to keep perspective? What resilience habits helped you? Was there anything you tried that actually made matters worse, or did the things that you use as remedies in tough situations always improve the situation? What do you feel as though you heard up really, really well? The areas where you were under extreme pressure and you came through with flying colors? Your objective shouldn't just be to be able to get through tough situations, it should be to develop grace under pressure. Every year you spend on this planet, you're going to get a little bit more resilient by default, because you can't have to go through some stuff that is tough, and you need to deal with, and you need to manage to get you way through the other side. And every time you go through something difficult, it does slightly build your confidence. What happens to a lot of leaders is that they learn to put on their game face. What they do is control their outward emotions so that they seem as though they're calm and in control, but inside they still have this crushing panic when they're in an emergency situation. And it's really hard to get over this. Grace under pressure is a situation where the calm that you have on the outside, what other people see in what you project, is entirely consistent with how you feel on the inside. So there's a complete congruence, and people can tell the difference. If you're just putting on your game face, but inside you've got this tension and stress, they're going to see that, they're going to know. People can tell the difference, even if they can't quite put their finger on it. When you're entirely calm and relaxed under pressure, people feel that as well, and it is contagious. If you're okay, then they're going to be okay. I used to say to my guys, "I'll tell you when it's time to panic. Just relax. It's not time to panic yet. When things get bad enough to panic, I'll be the first one to tell you." And finally, the fourth question that relates to your 2025 review is accountability. Now accountability is the bedrock of performance. And I say all the time, if you could only do one thing to make a difference in your team, meaning strong single points of accountability would be the biggest lever you could pull to improve performance. It is the number one performance lever. This gives you control over execution. Instead of having an volcano responsibility culture, you can develop a highly accountable culture, no blame, no excuses. So it's worth taking a moment to reflect on the strength of accountability in your team. It's don't erode in one big moment. They erode one missed conversation at a time. And single point accountability is the number one weapon that you have in your arsenal to improve team performance rapidly. So let's ask a few questions of ourselves. Who did you hold strongly accountable this year? They had clarity of objectives, they knew what they had to deliver, and you held them to account for that delivery. Where did standards drift? Because you didn't intervene early enough. You just let it roll along to the inevitable car crash. Where did you confuse empowerment with abdicating responsibility? And which one of your people got a free pass for far too long? Establishing a culture of empowerment and accountability is a complex thing. It's hard to do, otherwise everyone would be doing it, it's so powerful. But your 2026 performance is really going to rise or fall on your willingness to enforce standards consistently and to put single point accountability in place. If you don't do that, you're likely to get more of the same. OK, let's just step back. Now that's your 2025 review. We had those four areas that we explored. First of all was the value you actually delivered. Second was where you avoided the tough stuff. The third was how you performed under pressure. And the fourth was accountability, which is the bedrock of performance. Now let's have a thing about 2026 and what you're going to step into. I want to start with your 2026 leadership theme. Now I think this is sort of useful just to get a guide for where you want to head. It's useful to have a theme that focuses you on the most critical outcome that you're prepared to commit to. So I want you to pick one sentence that represents the thrust of your intent. And I'm going to share mine with you. First year was a tough one for me. And even though we achieved an incredible amount in our business, as I sit here in mid-December, I'm feeling just a little jaded. After another international move and the disruption of resettling back into Australia, I was really stretched my limits for creativity and content production and trying to deliver world class performance for our clients. I've just spent a few days in Sydney with our CEO, Emma, and the rest of the your CEO and your team. And it reminded me how incredibly fortunate I am to be able to do what I do every day. We're having an impact on thousands of leaders right across the globe. Now for the vast majority of these leaders, I'll never know their names. I'll never know who they are. I'll never see them thrive as a result of the insights that they gain from the No Bull Leadership Podcast, but some data analysis that Emma's done recently is telling us just how many leaders we are deeply impacting, supporting them on their leadership journey. So as I get myself grounded again in life back in Australia, my leadership thing for 2026 is rediscovering the deep joy and immense privilege of being able to impact so many leaders. OK, so that's my example, what's yours? You might have something like, operate at level, letting go of my old role so I can really level up or lifting my execution speed so that my confidence soars or courageous conversations no exceptions or relentless pursuit of higher standards for my team. Now this is going to set your leadership altitude for the next year, right? The second thing is, what's the one achievement you're going to want to put on your CV at the end of the year? What's the number one thing that you can do from where you are that's going to improve your career trajectory? You may have struggled a little at the start of the episode where I asked you what the value was that you delivered in 2025, specifically, clearly, quiteifiably, what did you do the created value? Well, you may not have started 2025 with that in mind, but you can start 2026 with that right in the forefront of what you're doing. What is the most impressive thing that could go on your CV? The thing that would deliver the most value for your team and for your company? I came across this question quite randomly. I was running a session for the top 50 leaders in CS energy and I was trying to get them to understand the concept of value delivery, not process, not activity. I wanted them to really hone in on the value and I couldn't work out how to do this because there were a lot of blank faces in the room. What do you mean, Marty? We're delivering value at the moment. We're doing everything we need to. So I flipped it around and I said, just think about this from your personal perspective. If you could only do one thing this year and at the end of the year, you had to go out into the marketplace and find a new job. What's the one thing that would make you irresistible to any potential employer? And what I found was that the alignment between the thing that would personally set someone up the best and what would create the most value for the team and for the company, well, they were the same thing. There was a very, very high correlation. Now since you weren't primed to do this 12 months ago, it's easy to understand how things may have gotten away from you. And you've got to the end of the year having worked incredibly hard with no real bankable results to show for it. But don't worry, this is extremely common and many leaders can't find an impressive quantifiable outcome unless it was clearly defined in advance. So here's your opportunity. What's the one big outcome that would make you irresistible to the people who have your career path in their hands? Knowing in mind your current context and the opportunities there in front of you, what would be the most impressive achievement that you could add to your CV in 2026? So you need to focus on areas where you can really move the performance needle, not just completing a task. For example, you might project forward and say that the one thing in your control is the category one response turnaround times in your team. So you might set the target that says, this year I'm going to improve service levels on our category one response turnaround times from two days to under four hours with no additional operating expenses. Imagine if you could put that on your resume at the end of the year. So you're really after clarity here and it comes in focus. You don't want 10 priorities. You want to choose one and then design everything else around delivering that value. Alright so where are we for 2026? You've developed your 2026 leadership theme and you've worked out the one achievement that's going to lift your career if you can manage to bank that on your CV. Now I just want you to think about putting this into action because it's really easy to say this stuff and not follow up. So the question I want you to ask yourself is this, what if I just do more of the same? What if I keep leading the same way I did in 2025? Is this going to improve my chances of reaching the next level? Is it going to improve the way my team performs or am I just kidding myself? If nothing changes, nothing changes. So you've got to do something different and I think if you can focus yourself on the theme and that high value target deliverable, you're going to end up in a pretty good place. And of course making that happen is a lot harder than it sounds. You've got to be able to align your team around these objectives. You've got to be able to convince your boss that it's a good idea to sacrifice quantity for quality. So you're going to do less work. You're going to drop the things that aren't the highest value so that you can focus on the things that are and you've got to get agreement on that. And then you've got to establish the type of culture that can make it possible. So high accountability, clarity around objectives and a relentless focus on the standard of your setting. If you're listening to this thinking, wow, I've really got some work to do here. Well, that's actually a great sign. It means you've got clarity. And if you don't know how to close those gaps, how to build capability and enforce accountability and work at level and make faster decisions and get that laser-like focus on value, well, that's exactly what I teach in our flagship program leadership beyond the theory. If you want 2026 to be the year you operate at a genuinely higher level, leadership beyond the theory should be on your personal development list. This is where you're going to get all the tools and techniques that you need to take your leadership all the way to the C-suite. Alright, so that brings us to the end of episode 381. I really hope you've enjoyed it and it really helps you set up 2026 as being a kick-ass year for you. This week we're going to continue the theme with the Crush Your Career Challenge for 2026. Until then, I know you take every opportunity you can to be a no-borshit leader.