7 leadership habits to build in 2026 (and what to break first)
Bad leadership habits are subtle. They slip in quietly, dressed as diligence or care or thoroughness.
After two decades in tech and leadership, I’ve watched projects collapse and careers stall. But it’s never dramatic failures. It comes from small, repeated patterns that compound.
The start of a new year is a good time to audit your leadership habits. Here are seven worth building in 2026, and what you need to break first.
| Break this habit | Build this habit instead | How to start |
|---|---|---|
| Confusing control with leadership | Delegate real ownership | Hand someone a problem, not a task list |
| Always having the final word | Ask more, answer less | Track your question-to-answer ratio in meetings |
| Rewarding outcomes but ignoring effort | Recognize smart risks | Create a “Best Failed Experiment” award |
| Avoiding hard conversations | Be direct and kind | Write the opening line of the talk you’re avoiding |
| Chasing every shiny object | Protect focus ruthlessly | List everything, keep three, stop the rest |
| Hiding behind busyness | Calendar for what matters | Block recurring time with your people first |
| Never looking in the mirror | Look inward first | Write three ways you contributed before you blame |
1. Delegate real ownership
Most leaders confuse control with leadership. Micromanagement. Constant check-ins. They think being “in control” is the same as being “in charge.”
Control is usually fear. Fear of failure, or fear of appearing weak. When teams are micromanaged, they stop thinking for themselves. They wait to be told. And when something finally breaks, the leader wonders why no one stepped up.
How to build this habit:
Pick three things you currently approve or review. For each one, define the outcome you actually care about, not the process. Write down what success looks like.
Hand the whole thing to someone on your team with a single conversation:
“Here’s what good looks like. How you get there is up to you. Check in with me only if you hit a wall.”
What to expect: The first week will feel uncomfortable. The second week, you’ll see them start to own it. By week three, they’ll make decisions you wouldn’t have made, and half of them will be better than yours.
2. Ask more, answer less
Some leaders need to be the smartest person in the room. Whether it’s brainstorming, planning, or decision-making, they stop listening. They rush toward conclusions.
This doesn’t just kill creativity. It builds a silent culture of fear. Team members stop sharing ideas, stop pushing back, stop engaging. The team goes quiet, and the leader thinks everything is going great because no one dares to challenge them.
How to build this habit:
Track your ratio: In your next three meetings, count how many questions you ask versus how many answers you give. If you’re under 3:1 questions to answers, you’re still performing instead of leading.
Practice the echo technique: When someone shares an idea, repeat it back in different words and ask, “Is that right? What else?”
Replace solving with asking: When you feel the urge to solve something, ask “How would you approach this?” instead.
End with silence: Close every meeting with “What am I missing?” and count to ten in your head while you wait. Someone will fill the silence. Let them.
3. Recognize smart risks
Chasing results isn’t bad. But when leaders only praise outcomes and ignore the process, experimentation, and effort behind them, they send a clear message: failure is not an option.
This creates a culture where everyone chases safe wins and nobody takes risks. Over time, the team becomes stagnant because they’ve never learned how to grow through failure.
How to build this habit:
Create “Best Failed Experiment”: Make it a monthly recognition category. Make it as visible as your other wins.
Ask about failure: In your one-on-ones, ask “What did you try this month that didn’t work?” If the answer is nothing, that’s a red flag.
Run proper debriefs: When someone takes a calculated risk that fails, spend 15 minutes doing a learning extraction:
- What was the hypothesis?
- What did we learn?
- What would we do differently?
- What do we do next?
Document it somewhere your team can see. Failure only becomes valuable when you extract the lesson and share it.
4. Be direct and kind
Most leaders avoid hard conversations. Delaying real feedback, sugarcoating bad news, dodging conflict. It feels kind in the moment. They avoid these conversations because they care, not because they’re lazy.
But in trying to protect someone’s feelings, they end up doing long-term damage. A missed feedback moment becomes a pattern. A skipped conflict becomes a breakdown. The kindness curdles into confusion and resentment.
How to build this habit:
Write the opening: Think of the hard conversation you’ve been avoiding. Write just the first sentence. Something like: “I need to talk about something that’s been bothering me, and I’ve been avoiding it because I care about our relationship.”
Schedule it: Put 30 minutes on the calendar this week.
Use this format:
- “When you [specific behavior]…”
- “…the impact was [concrete result].”
- “Going forward, I need [clear expectation].”
Then stop talking. Let them respond. The discomfort you feel is growth happening in real time.
Start small: Practice with tiny feedback first. Don’t wait for the performance review. Give course corrections in the moment, delivered with respect.
5. Protect focus ruthlessly
Some leaders chase every shiny object. New tools, new trends, new initiatives. They love novelty and have a habit of over-promising what they can deliver. Their teams end up exhausted and burned out, constantly switching directions with no clear finish line.
There’s a fine line between adaptable and chaotic. When everything is a priority, nothing is.
How to build this habit:
List everything: Write down everything your team is currently working on. Everything.
Rank by impact: Order them by actual impact, not perceived urgency. Pick the top three. Everything else goes on a “not now” list.
Apply the filter: Before you add anything new, ask: “What are we going to stop doing to make room for this?” No answer means no new initiative.
Make it visible: Put your three priorities on a wall, in your team chat, in every meeting agenda. When someone brings you a new idea, you point at the wall and ask which of those three it replaces.
Block calendar time: Create recurring “focus blocks” where no meetings are allowed. Protect Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Make them sacred. If you won’t protect your team’s attention, no one else will.
6. Calendar for what matters
Most leaders hide behind busyness. Always running from meeting to meeting. Too busy for the interactions that matter most: one-on-ones, coaching, feedback, recognition, or just listening.
Busyness gives the illusion of importance, but it’s often just a shield. Avoidance of the hard, human parts of leadership. If your team can’t get your time, they won’t give you their trust.
How to build this habit:
Audit last week: Pull up your calendar. Calculate how many hours you spent in one-on-ones, coaching conversations, and unstructured time with your team. If it’s less than 30% of your week, your calendar is lying about your priorities.
Block recurring time: Schedule time with each direct report like you’d block time with your CEO. Make it the first thing on your calendar each quarter. An hour every two weeks minimum. No laptops, no phones, no agenda unless they bring one.
Create office hours: Two-hour blocks twice a week where anyone can grab 15 minutes with you, no scheduling needed. You just sit there, available. Some weeks no one will come. Other weeks you’ll have five conversations that prevent three fires. The presence matters more than the content.
7. Look inward first
When something goes wrong, ineffective leaders look outward. They blame the team, the market, the process, the timing. Never themselves.
This is the most dangerous habit because it blocks all the others from changing. Self-awareness is the foundation of leadership growth. Without it, you’re stuck repeating the same mistakes in different situations.
How to build this habit:
Write before you blame: When something goes wrong, before you talk to anyone else, write down three things you did or didn’t do that contributed to the outcome. Be specific:
- “I didn’t check in for two weeks”
- “I changed the goal halfway through”
- “I assumed they understood when I never actually confirmed”
Create a learning log: Make a private document called “What I learned about my leadership.” Date each entry. Write three things you contributed to the outcome, good or bad. Review it monthly. The patterns will emerge.
Get real feedback: Not annual 360 reviews. Real feedback. Ask one person every quarter: “What’s one thing I do that makes your job harder?”
Then shut up and listen. Don’t defend, don’t explain. Just say “Thank you” and sit with it for a week before you respond.
Making it stick
Knowing what to change is easy. Changing it is harder.
Pick one habit from this list. The one that made you most uncomfortable to read. That’s your starting point. Work on it for a quarter before adding another.
Leadership growth isn’t dramatic transformation. Small adjustments, repeated consistently, until they become your new default.
Check out TeamMood
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Header photo by Johannes Plenio