How to tackle a second-year leadership slump

Here are nine steps to translate early gains into sustainable success:

• Increase focus on structure and sustainability

You’ve reached the end of the launch phase and naturally want to sustain (or even accelerate) momentum. However, you need to strike a balance between control and empowering others. To achieve this, focus on structure and sustainability, and combine information with intuition in your decision-making process.

• Calibrate the pace of change

You must transition from the short, intense problem-solving of the launch period, with its frantic energy, into a steadier, more calculated rhythm of measurement, learning, and adaptation – recalibrating strategy, team, and expectations so the organization can scale sustainably.

• Reset your mental model

Update the map you use to navigate the business. Whereas launch requires intuition, experimentation, and hypothesis testing, calibration demands system thinking, reliable metrics, and disciplined trade-offs.

• Re-examine how the business creates value

You likely inherited or were given a strategy that worked when you started. The task now is to assess the degree of evolution needed going forward, updating the assumptions that worked in the “honeymoon” phase.

• Deepen board relations

Actively engage board members on a personal level. Be transparent about problems encountered, but own the performance narrative before they do.

• Be inclusive

You must be highly sensitive not only to the demands of investors, but also to the needs of customers, employees, and external stakeholder groups.

• Audit the leadership team

Some early players will grow with the company, but others will not. You must calibrate roles, expectations, and talent depth. Ensure role clarity, explicit accountability, and regular review cycles to keep everyone aligned.

• Attend to the data

Calibration demands reliable feedback loops: a handful of metrics that genuinely diagnose performance rather than decorate slide decks. The goal is to build a company that learns as quickly as it grows.

• Keep getting out in the field

Qualitative observation should complement data. Getting out onto “the shop floor” allows you to see and hear for yourself how moves are unfolding.

Achieving results with low-hanging fruit in your first year through cost-cutting, operational efficiencies, and other initiatives is far easier than driving top-line growth initiatives. Use a deliberate process of calibration to ensure momentum and translate early gains into sustainable success.

Further reading:

Hildebrand and Stark’s book, The Life Cycle of a CEO.