THREE MOMENTUM BLOCKERS EXECUTIVES IGNORE — UNTIL IT’S TOO LATE
- Kristi Duvall
- Dec 15, 2025
- 4 min read
Every Fall, leaders submit their budgets, finalize their targets, and walk into the final weeks of the year exhausted but hopeful.
On paper, the year ahead looks clear.
The spreadsheet is tidy, the goals make sense, and the numbers add up.
But here’s the truth most executives won’t say out loud:
Planning the year and preparing for the year are not the same thing.
Most leaders do the first. Very few do the second.
By the time January arrives, the gap becomes obvious — momentum stalls before the year even begins. Not because leaders lack motivation, but because three very real blockers went unaddressed in December.
Having led teams through seasons of growth, restructuring, cultural change, and high operational pressure, I’ve seen these blockers play out again and again. And unless you name them, they run the show.
Here are the three momentum blockers executives ignore — often until it’s too late.
BLOCKER 1: Working in the business instead of working on it
December is notorious for pulling leaders into the weeds.
Firefighting.
Chasing year-end orders.
Responding to operational delays.
Clearing an overloaded inbox because the organization treats email as the primary “system.”
Coaching team members through holiday burnout.
Trying to close strong while holding everything together.
By the time the year ends, leaders are depleted — but not prepared.
I’ve lived through years where the budget was submitted meticulously and early… and yet I had done nothing to actually prepare myself or my team for the year ahead. The planning existed. The execution did not.
This is the silent trap of Q4:
You’re so busy finishing the year that you forget to set up the next one.
Momentum dies here — not because leaders don’t want to move forward, but because they’re entering January with decision fatigue, reactive thinking, and no strategic runway.
Preparation questions to ask:
What conversations need to happen before January hits?
What do you want your team focused on in the first 10 days of the year?
What one priority will anchor the first quarter?
What needs to be shut down, simplified, or removed before the year turns over?
Momentum is built in December, not granted in January.
BLOCKER 2: Expecting momentum without systems, standards, or alignment
The fastest way to kill momentum is to assume it can exist without infrastructure.
I’ve led through seasons where teams were expected to hit ambitious goals without:
clear expectations
consistent standards
shared communication norms
aligned leadership
defined roles
a real CRM or operational workflow
predictable handoff processes
In environments like this, momentum doesn’t stall because people aren’t capable.
It stalls because the organization hasn’t created the conditions for success.
I once led a team through a season where sales expectations were rising, but systems hadn’t caught up. Nothing was standardized. Everything lived in email. People operated based on tenure, not clarity. Alignment depended on who you talked to, not what was documented.
High performers struggled.
New performers had no roadmap.
And leaders spent more time buffering the chaos than advancing the strategy.
This is why systems matter.
One of the most effective tools I ever created was a simple expectations framework — a formula showing how many outreaches led to how many meetings, which led to how many opportunities, which translated into projected revenue.
It brought clarity.
It set standards.
It created accountability without micromanagement.
It gave everyone a shared understanding of what success required.
Leaders often underestimate this:
Momentum isn’t a motivational issue — it’s a structural one.
Without systems, you get motion… but not momentum.
BLOCKER 3: Invisible emotional labor that drains leadership capacity
This is the blocker no one talks about — and the one that quietly erodes momentum more than anything else.
In every complex organization I’ve ever worked in, there has been a gap between the leadership values printed on slides… and the behavior people experience day-to-day.
When that gap widens, the emotional labor falls on mid-level and senior leaders — the ones who are actually stabilizing the culture.
I’ve held teams through:
uncertainty about restructuring
worry about being replaced
fear of losing control after decades of consistency
burnout from systems that weren’t evolving
frustration with unclear expectations
anxiety about whether leadership decisions made sense
This emotional load is never in the job description — but it is always on the leader’s shoulders.
And here’s the truth:
You cannot build momentum when you’re quietly carrying the emotional weight of an entire team.
It slows thinking.
It drains capacity.
It fractures focus.
It keeps leaders in a reactive stance instead of a strategic one.
Naming this isn’t weakness — it’s awareness. Because once you name it, you can lead around it instead of drowning under it.
The leaders who accelerate momentum do one thing differently
They don’t wait for January to give them a fresh start.
They create it.
They:
identify the blockers
reset expectations
clarify priorities
build or reinforce systems
prepare their teams
protect their energy
remove what drains urgency, clarity, or accountability
They stop assuming momentum is a byproduct of planning.
They treat momentum as a leadership discipline.
If you do that, the year won’t just start stronger — it will sustain itself with less strain, less reactivity, and less chaos.
You deserve that.
Your team deserves that.
Your future deserves that.
If you know the year ahead needs to feel different — steadier, clearer, more aligned — and you want support mapping that out, I coach a small number of leaders 1:1 each season. Explore my coaching programs and reach out whenever you feel ready or subscribe for leadership insights.
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