The Leadership Skill Nobody Talks About: Knowing When to Let Go

We celebrate leaders who build. Who acquire. Who grow.

But the best leaders I have worked with share a different skill: they know when to let go.

Not because they have given up. Because they understand that holding on to the wrong things makes it impossible to reach for the right ones.

What we carry forward

As the year ends, most leaders are already planning what to add. New goals. New initiatives. New priorities.

Fewer are asking what to subtract.

But every commitment you carry into the new year takes space. Every project you refuse to close, every relationship you maintain out of obligation, every strategy that stopped working months ago — they all cost something.

The leaders who start the year exhausted are often the ones who refused to let go of anything from the year before.

What letting go looks like

Letting go is not quitting. It is choosing.

It might be closing a project that served its purpose. Ending a meeting series that no longer adds value. Releasing a goal that made sense two years ago but does not fit who you are becoming.

Sometimes it is letting go of a version of yourself — the leader who needed to prove something, the one who said yes to everything, the one who carried burdens that were never yours to carry.

The question

Before you add anything to your plate for 2026, ask yourself: What am I still holding that no longer serves me?

The answer might surprise you.

And letting it go might be the most important leadership decision you make this year.