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The Bosshole® Chronicles
The Bosshole® Chronicles
Resolutions for the 2026 Manager
The final Tuesday of the year is the perfect moment to trade vague goals for practices that actually change teams. We share five manager resolutions for 2026 that cut through noise and target what matters most: self-reflection, psychological safety, emotional intelligence, a whole-person approach, and eliminating destructive behaviors that erode trust.
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Welcome back to all of our friends out there in The Boss hole Transformation Nation. This is your host, John Broer, welcoming you to the last episode of 2025. I really don't have much of a voice left. I've been fighting some vocal thing. I've been fighting something with my voice for the last few weeks, but I will endeavor to do one more episode, not a long one, but to focus on what could be or should be the top five resolutions for managers moving into 2026. And I'll tell you a little bit more about how I came up with this idea, how these five resolutions were generated. But settle in, uh, take a few minutes to listen to this, and for all of our managers or would-be managers out there, how does this correlate with the resolutions you've set for yourself in 2026? Let's jump in. The Bosshole Chronicles are brought to you by Real Good Ventures, a talent optimization firm helping organizations diagnose their most critical people and execution issues with world-class analytics. Make sure to check out all the resources in the show notes and be sure to follow us and share your feedback. Enjoy today's episode. Well, here we are, the last Tuesday of 2025, and the last installment for this year's series of The Boss hole Chronicles. So glad to have you with me today. Most of the team at Real Good Ventures and the Boss Hole Chronicles, just kind of taking it easy around the holidays. But I thought I would put together one last episode talking about resolutions for 2026. There's some things that our managers and our supervisors out there could think about. But let me tell you about the way I generated this list. First of all, let me just apologize. My voice sounds a little bit off. I've been dealing with a vocal strain for the last few weeks, and doing this is probably not a good idea. But I had just one last idea I wanted to share with the Boss Hole Transformation Nation, and that was coming up with some just really solid resolutions that managers and supervisors could think about for 2026. I actually went to the AI platform that I use frequently, and that is Grok. And the prompt that I put in, as I said, based on all of the work that we do at Real Good Ventures, at all of the content that we have shared with the world about bosshole prevention and bosshole intervention, and considering the challenges that managers will face in 2026 and beyond, give me five of the best and strongest resolutions that managers should consider in the new year. And it generated five really, really solid resolutions that I want to share with you. And hopefully it could provide some perspective on how you are going to approach your management role, your supervisory role in the new year. So let's just jump right in. First one will not come as a surprise to you. The first resolution was commit to continuous self-reflection. And you hear us talk about this all the time at the Boss Hole Chronicles. We talk about this all the time when we're doing manager and supervisor development at Real Good Ventures, and that is self-awareness. Self-awareness is the number one competency to be an effective manager. And so the tools that we often use Predictive Index, EQI 2.0, EQ 360, the Fearless Organization Scan, these types of tools are specifically built to help create a stronger sense of self-awareness and utilize objective data so that people, and specifically managers and supervisors, have a better means of self-reflection. So what's the rationale behind this? Well, you know, the landscape of work is evolving very quickly. So you think about the influence of AI, flatter organizational structures that companies are utilizing these days, and constant upskilling. All right. Managers have to adapt behaviors via feedback and tools. So this resolution promotes the agility and humility required to lead through uncertainty, preventing outdated bosshole styles that hinder progress. And you, again, you hear us talk about that all the time. You know, the outdated practices of command and control management techniques, giving way to an understanding of the need for trust and autonomy and creating self-awareness and awareness of the people around you. So, number one, commit to continuous self-reflection. And for any of these, if you want to know how do I do that, uh just reach out. A simple email to info at realgoodventures.com and just say, hey, help me with my resolutions. We will help you with them. All right, so that's number one. Number two talks about prioritizing psychological safety. Now, we have had a number of different episodes on psychological safety. Probably the most notable is the one we did with Dr. Amy Edmondson. That was a couple of years ago. Happens to be our number one downloaded episode of the Boss Hole Chronicles in five years. But why is psychological safety so critical? Well, psychological safety is repeatedly cited as essential for innovation, collaboration, and resilience in volatile environments. It's good in any environment, but when you have that volatility in a work environment, psychological safety is the thing that's going to help a team perform. Now, with AI reshaping jobs and hybrid models persisting, teams need safe spaces to experiment, voice concerns, and adapt without fear. And the studies have shown that psychological safety is a predictor of high-performing teams amid change and burnout risks. Lately, we've been hearing a lot of our clients talk about the velocity of change and worrying about people burning out. Well, this is exactly where the fearless organization scan comes in. This is where we would go in and employ this to help a manager and his or her direct reports understand what is the level of psychological safety, and let's look at it objectively so that we can work together to build it and make it stronger for the team in light of the fact that there are a lot of changes happening around us. Okay, so that's number two. So let's talk about number three. Deepen emotional intelligence. EQ, emotional intelligence, is emerging as a top leadership trend for 2026. There is no question about it. And experts are noting its role in empathy-driven management, conflict resolution, and motivating diverse distributed teams. And as automation handles routine tasks, leaders must excel at human connection to boost engagement, reduce turnover, and counter the trend of quiet quitting or burnout. So a lot of times organizations will focus on what we call the briefcase, a person's resume, their knowledge, skills, abilities, credentials, all the stuff that you find on a resume. We call that the briefcase. And there is no predictive value in the briefcase. EQ and understanding a person's behavioral wiring and their capacity to deal with complexity, which is general cognitive ability, that creates a much stronger leader or manager or supervisor. So EQ is a key contributor to leadership trends in 2026. Two more left. Number four is what we would call developing a whole person approach. Now you've heard us talk about the whole person model. We talk about head, heart, and briefcase. Actually, we've added one to it, head, heart, briefcase, and baggage. But managers really do need to look at the whole person model. You can't just carve out, you know, a person's briefcase and think about what's on their resume and ignore the other aspects of who they are. And let me tell you why this is so important. Viewing employees holistically beyond skills to include motivators and well being counters rising challenges like when skills have been mismatched or generational shifts, i. e. Gen Z expectations, and retention in tight talent markets. Now this supports the whole idea of personalized development, which is critical for closing skills gaps and sustaining performance in AI augmented workplaces. So that whole person approach is going to be critical for managers moving forward. By the way, it's always been more critical than just a simple look at a person's resume. But managers that are truly enlightened about the whole person approach, they're going to have a distinct advantage moving forward in 2026 and beyond. All right, let's talk about the final one. Eliminating destructive behaviors. Now, what does that include? Well, avoiding things like sarcasm, public criticism, humiliation is the key to combating toxicity, which exacerbates disengagement and mental health strains, which are projected to intensify in the years to come. So, I mean, if that's what I want to avoid and eliminate, what do I want to add to my repertoire? Well, constructive, respectful feedback builds trust and models the inclusive culture needed for diverse, high-stress teams facing ongoing disruption. So, as we like to say at Real Good Ventures, feedback is the oxygen of engagement. So, one very simple thing that you can do going into 2026 is figuring out the ways for me to draw more feedback from my direct reports about how they're doing, about how I'm doing for them, and understanding specifically where they are. I was having a conversation just a few weeks ago with a prospective client. We're going to be working together in 2026, but part of the discussion had to do with managers only having that sort of annual review with their direct reports. It's part of the culture, it's kind of a norm, and it's not a healthy norm. And the discussion that I shared with them is we want to equip your managers and supervisors to be not only trained on how to have more frequent, informal conversations, but also how to ask the right questions and make sure that feedback isn't something that you're necessarily giving all the time. You are drawing that feedback out. Because again, how else are you going to know where your people are unless you're having those conversations? And you cannot wait to that one time a year when we're going to sit down and do your review. Now, what does that also mean? That means our managers and our supervisors need to invest their time in their people more effectively rather than just manage their time. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, it's pretty simple. Sometimes managers and supervisors are just glorified individual contributors, and they don't have time to really sit down and invest in gaining that feedback and having those informal conversations with their direct reports. So that's destructive behavior. And that's an opportunity for you to change that. I always like to talk about to people about when you're you're really trying to optimize your time, looking at your tasks in three ways. What are your must-dos, your should do's, and your nice-to-dos? And your must-dos are things that only you can do. It's unique to your position, it's to you, it's unique to your role in the organization. And when you think of a manager, only a manager is in a position to develop other people. You are that hub to help other people grow. And if you don't have time set aside for that more frequently than just once a year or even once a quarter, that means that there are perhaps some destructive behaviors or tasks or things that are interrupting that flow and that needs to change. And in those opportunities where you are taking more time to communicate with your direct reports, with your team members, try to have one of those moments where you can sort of step away from yourself and listen to the words you're using or the tone you are using. That's why it says to get away from things like sarcasm and public humiliation and start to focus on encouragement and constructive feedback so that people are growing. All right, so let's recap. Number one, commit to continuous self-reflection that starts with self-awareness, and we can help you with that. Number two, prioritize psychological safety within your team. It is a game changer relative to team cohesiveness and performance. Number three, deepen emotional intelligence. EQ is something that you can measure, and we can help you with that too. The tools of emotional intelligence are the things that help managers and supervisors adapt to the changing world around them. And your team members need you to be familiar with those tools. Number four, adopt a whole person approach. Look at the whole person, head, heart, and briefcase, because you can't separate one from the other. And if you don't, when we talk about the head, we're talking about behavioral and cognitive wiring, all of which we can help you understand. If you don't have that, you are guessing at everything else. And then finally, number five, eliminate destructive behaviors. Reflect back on the things that you do, that you say, your countenance and your approach with your people. Are you building up or are you tearing down? And think about how are the ways that I can help to be a developer of people, help them grow, which also includes an investment of time. So that's only five for 2026. And trust me, if you pick, you know, a couple of those, you will have your hands full. But don't think you have to do this by yourself. All of the content you have from these last five years of the Boss Hole Chronicles and all of the work we do at Real Good Ventures, this is the stuff we help you accomplish. So if you have questions, if you are uncertain, if you need help with this, we are happy to help you as well. But think about the people around you, the people in your organization, your trusted advisors, people that can help you grow as a leader, as a manager or a supervisor, or as we like to say, a developer of people. And when you start to go down that path, the new year looks awfully bright. Happy New Year, everybody, and we'll see you in 2026. Thanks very much for checking out this episode of the Bosshole Chronicles. It was so good to have you here. And if you have your own bosshole story that you want to share with the Bosshole Transformation Nation, just reach out. You can email us at mystory at the Bosshole Chronicles.com. Again, my story at the Bosshole Chronicles.com. We'll see you next time.