How to make sure you're prepared for whatever 2026 throws at you

If you’re like most senior leaders I’m working with right now, your priorities for the year have been set for months. Your decks are done, the themes are clear, and your ambitions are real.

The risk at this stage isn’t that you chose the wrong goals.

It’s that you’ll try to execute them as if the system will behave differently this year — calmer, more focused, less interrupted — even though you already know better.

So as we head into another year of uncertainty, volatility, and constant demand on leadership attention, I want to share a few patterns I’m seeing across very different organizations — and what actually helps priorities survive reality, not the best laid plans we came up with before we were sure what would be thrown at us.

Pressure‑test priorities against the disruptions you already know are coming

As I take stock of the challenges facing my clients — from financial services to manufacturing to tech to higher education and beyond — I keep seeing the same execution failure in different forms.

At “Heritage Publishing”, leaders knew cost pressure, generational transition, and systems work would dominate the year. But those realities hadn’t been factored into how priorities would compete once execution began.

At a university I work with, strategic initiatives stalled not because they weren’t important, but because emergencies were constant. Timelines were built as if interruptions were anomalies — even though they were structural.

Different contexts. Same underlying issue.

Plans assumed a level of focus and capacity that the system simply couldn’t deliver. Because it wasn’t designed to.

Instead of revisiting goals, we shifted the conversation to a Before Action Review — asking leaders to pressure‑test execution against reality:

• What do we already know will pull attention away from this work?

• Which priorities are most fragile to interruption?

• Where are we pretending cost pressure, churn, or emergencies won’t matter?

This wasn’t pessimism. It was execution discipline.

When teams name disruptors together, two things change immediately: First, timelines are rebuilt with realistic interruption buffers, and priorities are then sequenced — instead of stacked.

A Before Action Review doesn’t lower ambition. It prevents leaders from mistaking friction for failure.

Ask yourself: What pressures or disruptions do I already know will compete for attention this year — and where am I still planning as if they won’t?

Replace vague alignment with explicit trade‑offs — before pressure forces them

Many leadership teams believe they’re aligned because everyone in the room “agreed.”

Execution tells a different story.

At “PacWest Professional Services,” leaders expressed shared commitment to modernization and growth. But when pressure rose, they protected their own teams — not out of bad intent, but because trade‑offs had never been made explicit.

Alignment existed in principle, not in decisions.

So instead of asking, “Are we aligned?” we asked:

• What are we explicitly willing to deprioritize this year?

• What work will not get leadership air cover — even if it’s important?

• What decisions will not be revisited mid‑year?

That shift mattered.

When trade‑offs were named, mid‑year reversals dropped, quiet re‑prioritization slowed, and middle managers received clearer signals about what actually mattered

Identifying trade‑offs doesn't derail the mission. It preserves momentum.

Ask yourself: When priorities inevitably collide, what trade-offs have we actually agreed to make — and which ones are we still avoiding naming out loud?

Treat leadership capacity as a hard constraint — not an assumption

Execution rarely fails because leaders don’t care.

It fails because plans assume leadership capacity that doesn’t exist.

I see this often with high‑performing leaders whose scope has expanded faster than expectations, support, or clarity.

One client, “Jordan,” was navigating ambiguity, mixed sponsorship signals, and a dramatically expanded role. Development was technically “available,” but in reality it was unsupported. Her confidence didn’t erode because she lacked capability — it eroded because the system expected her resilience without providing any scaffolding.

I’ve seen the same thing with several “PacWest Professional Services” leaders, where promotions came without recalibrated expectations.

Strong intent. Insufficient support.

So, in coaching sessions, we reframed the question from: Are our leaders capable?

To: What leadership behaviors does this strategy actually require? Where are we assuming capacity without evidence? If execution strains, will we blame individuals — or examine the system?

When leaders treated capacity as a real constraint, not a hopeful assumption, priorities narrowed, expectations became clearer, and decision quality improved under pressure.

Most importantly, leaders stopped being surprised when execution got hard.

Ask yourself: What assumptions am I making about my leaders’ capacity, judgment, or resilience that I haven’t pressure-tested against reality?

Build permission to re‑decide, not just review

In high-pressure environments, leaders often feel stuck between two bad options: Stick rigidly to plans that no longer fit, or pivot constantly and erode trust.

One CEO I work with took a different approach. Instead of only reviewing metrics, she built explicit re‑decision points into the year.

These were regularly scheduled benchmarks not to simply review performance, but to revisit assumptions about market conditions, leadership bandwidth, and organizational strain.

Not reactive pivots.

Intentional re‑decisions.

The result:

• Fewer panic‑driven shifts

• Clearer communication when priorities changed

• Greater trust that leaders weren’t improvising

Re‑decisions became acts of leadership — not admissions of failure.

A question to carry into 2026

As you prepare your team for the year ahead, consider this:

Where are you relying on hope — instead of discipline — to make execution work?

Preparing for uncertainty doesn’t mean lowering ambition.

It means building plans that can survive pressure, distraction, and reality — without burning out your leaders or destabilizing your teams.