Close Your Year Strong: Your Year-End Leadership Review

Every PMO and transformation leader reaches the end of the year facing the same pressure. Close projects. Finalize reports. Summarize everything that got done. 

And yet, many leaders finish the year exhausted, frustrated, and still wonder why their work didn't earn more credibility with executives. 
But activity doesn't build credibility. IMPACT does. 

If your year-end review is just a list of projects delivered, reports created, or processes implemented, it's not helping leaders understand the value you brought to the organization. It's just noise. 

In this episode of the PMO Strategies podcast, I challenge leaders to rethink how they close the year and share the Year-End Leadership Reset workbook to help you do just that. Your year-end review shouldn't be a status report. It should be a strategy conversation. 

Why activity reports fail to build credibility 

Most year-end reviews focus on outputs. What was delivered. What was completed. What was checked off. 

Executives don't care about that. 

They care about business problems solved, value created, and outcomes achieved. They want to know whether your work reduced risk, improved decision-making, increased speed, or freed up capacity. 

If you don't frame your results that way, they won't see your IMPACT, even if it was significant. 

That's where many PMOs lose credibility, not because the work wasn't valuable, but because it wasn't communicated in the language leaders respect. 

Reflection with purpose, not guilt 

Closing the year strong starts with reflection. Not a highlight reel and not a beat-yourself-up exercise. 

I ask leaders to reflect on what actually worked, what didn't, and what surprised them about executive expectations. Most PMO and transformation leaders are surprised to realize that executives valued very different things than they expected. 

That insight matters. Because what leaders value should directly shape what you focus on next. 

Reflection isn't stepping back. It's moving forward with intent. 

Why elimination leads to better leadership 

One of the most important parts of closing the year strong is deciding what not to carry forward. 

Not everything you did this year deserves to continue. 

Some work created value. Double down on it. 
 
Some work drained time, energy, and credibility without creating IMPACT. Leave it behind. 

Elimination isn't laziness. It's leadership. 

When you stop doing low-valueimpact, high-effort work, you create space for what actually matters. And when you position that decision as a strategic focus, executives respect it. 

Reactive leaders try to do everything.

Strategic leaders prioritize results.  

Turning your year-end review into a strategy conversation 

Here's the shift that changes everything. 

Instead of reporting what you did, structure your year-end review around five questions: 

1. 1. What business problems did you solve? 
   2. What value did you create, and can you quantify it? 
   3. What did you learn about what works and what doesn't? 
   4. What are you intentionally stopping to create focus? 
   5. What are you building next?

That's not just a report. That's leadership. 

When you lead your year-end review this way, you position yourself as someone who understands the business, thinks strategically, and is already focused on what's coming next. 

That's how you earn a seat at the table. 

Closing the year strong sets up the year ahead 

The way you close the year determines how you start the next one. 

If you end the year buried in activity, you'll start the next year the same way. But if you close the year with clarity, focus, and strategic intent, you start the next year positioned as a leader who drives outcomes, not just execution. 

Credibility doesn't come from doing more. It comes from doing what matters most. 

That's what this episode is about. 

👉 Click play above to learn how to close the year strong, reframe your results around IMPACT, and turn your year-end review into a strategy conversation executives actually care about. And don't forget to download your Year-End Leadership Reset workbook to ensure you're all set for what's to come in 2026.