The holiday season is often described as a time to slow down, reconnect, and celebrate. For many leaders, end-of-year accountability demands that they do the opposite. Deadlines, next year planning, personal responsibilities… And alongside all of it is the expectation to remain available, productive, and steady for everyone else.
Your team may be carrying a similar mix of demands, though not necessarily the same ones. For some, this season brings connection and joy. For others, it brings grief, financial strain, caregiving responsibilities, or difficult family dynamics.
Supporting people through this season does not require you to solve everything they are carrying. It does require you to notice what you are carrying yourself, and to make room for the reality that people may need something different from you right now.
Begin with your own capacity
Before asking how your team is doing, take a moment to ask yourself the same question. Not how well you are keeping up, but how you are actually doing. Are you entering conversations already tense? Finding it harder to listen? Agreeing to one more thing when you know you are at capacity?
Those signals are information, not evidence that you are failing. This is the internal leadership work at the heart of my INNER framework: developing the capacity to recognize what is happening within you and respond intentionally, rather than letting pressure decide how you show up.
Start with something concrete. Pause before a difficult conversation. Give yourself a few minutes between meetings. Reconsider a commitment that no longer fits your capacity. You do not have to wait until the holidays are over to make room for yourself.
Consider the needs of your team members
You may not be able to change deadlines or extend them, but engaging in quick check-in conversations with your team to get a better understanding of their needs can go a long way to relieve anxiety and stress on everyone’s part. You don’t necessarily need them to disclose personal information or personal circumstances, but you can ask if there’s anything you can do to help them to be at their best through the season.
Sometimes the most helpful support you can provide is a clearer priority, a more flexible schedule when and if possible, or permission to step away from a nonessential commitment. You can listen with care without becoming responsible for resolving every difficulty in someone’s life.
Make support visible in the work
Telling people to take care of themselves means little if everything still feels urgent. Clarify what genuinely needs to happen before a break and what can wait. Agree on coverage and response expectations so time away does not quietly become time on call. Where the work cannot pause, make responsibilities explicit rather than relying on the same people to absorb every gap.
Apply those expectations to yourself, too. Not only for yourself but to model self-care to your team. If you encourage rest but remain constantly available, your team may wonder whether disconnecting is truly acceptable.
Steady leadership during the holidays is not about maintaining a cheerful appearance or carrying everyone else through at your own expense. It is about meeting yourself and others with honesty, care, and boundaries that make that care sustainable.
As you look at the weeks ahead, what is one expectation you could reconsider, for yourself or your team, to create a little more room to be human?