Summary

I took a deep break during the holiday season to complete “The Distributed Leadership Playbook”. Along with the many other tools on this website, you now have a full complement of resources to level up your leadership skills in 2025.

I haven’t written my weekly posts for the last couple of weeks. It was a conscious decision to take a “deep break” from web-based engagement during the holiday season. I promise you that I haven’t been twiddling my thumbs. I spent some time completing a long-pending project and reorganising this website.

When 2024 approached, I urged people managers to get back in service of the people they lead. But 2024 was another mad year in tech. Too much was happening for people to care about people management. As the year unfolded, I realised that distributed leadership was becoming a neglected capability at most firms. So, I began work on a distributed leadership assessment and playbook.

As the saying goes, though, “Stop starting, start finishing.” I took too long to finish what I’d started. I released the assessment in a matter of days, but then the playbook remained an open tab on my browser and an incomplete project on Notion for months. There was always something more important to handle — work, kids, travel, and so on. 

Anyway! That’s water under the bridge. I’m happy to announce that I used my “deep break” to release “The Distributed Leadership Playbook”. You can download the playbook using the button below. 

This playbook is part of the broader distributed leadership assessment. I invite you to take the assessment, use the personalised dashboard to reflect on your results and then use the playbook to plan how you’ll fine-tune the way you lead your team. As a complementary service, I now offer one-on-one coaching for any manager or leader who wants to improve their distributed leadership skills. 

While telling you about this, I want to remind you that you can also engage me in team workshops and masterclasses. And if there’s anything else you’d like to talk to me about, don’t hesitate to say hello.

So, the deep break came in handy, didn’t it? I certainly think so!

Like in 2024, I invite you to lead by example in 2025. Check out the async-first manifesto for distributed work - a product of deep, distributed collaboration between several deep thinkers and distributed work practitioners. I’m sure you’ll find some inspiration there!

The assessment and playbook aside, asyncagile.org has several tools to help you be a more effective distributed leader. 

The async-first starter kit

Go async-first with your team in five facilitated

steps. Tweak the tools to make them your own

The async-first method stack

Dozens of opportunistic techniques to go async-first

with your team. Choose your adventure!

Guides and how-tos

Plain English instructions on executing the most fundamental skills for distributed work.

Here’s what I’m trying to say. The tools are out there. Your team needs the best version of you. It’s time to level up, isn't it?