but by February, the meetings, the emergencies, the team issues — they take over.

And suddenly, your career is something that just… happens to you.

Not this year.

Not in 2026.

Today, we’re building the leadership roadmap that puts you back in the driver’s seat of your career.

Because here’s the truth:

Your calendar won’t create clarity for you.

Your company won’t magically prioritise your development.

And “hoping this is the year things change” is not a strategy.

If there’s one thing I’ve seen again and again with the extraordinary women I coach — whether they’re directors, senior ICs, emerging leaders, or sitting in the C-suite — it’s this:

Without a clear leadership roadmap, the year becomes reactive.

With a clear leadership roadmap, the year becomes transformational.

So if you ended 2025 feeling:

• overworked and under-recognised
• stuck in execution instead of growth
• constantly proving your worth but not moving up
• the only woman in the room carrying more emotional labour than your title reflects
• or just quietly frustrated that you “should be further along”…

You are exactly who this episode is for.

Because today isn’t about resolutions.

It’s not about setting 47 goals you’ll forget by March.

And it’s definitely not about pushing yourself harder (you’ve done enough of that).

This is about power.

Clarity.

Intention.

And designing a year that supports the leader you’re becoming — not the role you’ve outgrown.

If you listened to last week’s episode on mindset, you already started laying the foundation for this.

Because mindset is what opens the door…

But a roadmap is what moves you through it.

Today, I’ll walk you step-by-step through creating your 2026 Leadership Roadmap — the same process I use inside my coaching programs to help women shift from invisible to influential, from overwhelmed to in-control, and from plateaued to promotable.

By the end of this episode, you will have:

✨ A clear North Star for 2026

✨ The high-impact focus areas that will actually move your career forward

✨ The habits and boundaries that will protect your energy

✨ And a simple, structured plan for how to grow as a leader this year — intentionally, strategically, sustainably

No more hoping the year will be different.

We’re making it different.

Let’s dive in.

Before we map out your 2026 leadership roadmap, we need to do something that most of us skip — and it’s one of the biggest reasons they repeat the same career patterns year after year.

We need to look back.

Not to judge yourself.

Not to relive the stress.

But to extract the data — the leadership self-reflection — that will shape the decisions you make moving forward.

So I want you to take a breath, maybe grab your notebook, and walk through this quick audit with me.

Ask yourself:

What actually worked in 2025?

Where did you lead well? When did you feel proud? What created momentum?

What drained you?

Which projects, people, habits, or expectations pulled you into burnout patterns?

(Overextended Operators — this one is especially for you.)

What did you learn about yourself as a leader?

Where did you show confidence?

Where did self-doubt sneak in?

Where did your leadership mindset shift?

Where did you grow? And where did you disappear?

Invisible Leaders — this is a big moment.

Where did you hold back?

Where did you allow yourself to be overlooked?

Where did you wait for permission instead of stepping up?

What supported you? What sabotaged you?

Because leadership isn’t just about skills — it’s about patterns.

Why This Step Matters in Your Leadership Journey

Each of us needs this in a different way:

• If you’re focused on proving ourselves
  
  This helps you see that working harder wasn’t the thing that moved you forward — strategy is.
  
  
• If you’re constantly overextending yourself
  
  This finally names the burnout you’ve been pushing through so you can stop repeating it.
  
  
• If you’re doing all the things but still basically invisible to the decision makers
  
  This reveals how invisibility actually played out across your year — not as a personality trait, but as a pattern that can change.
  
  
• If you’re focused on strategically building out your career
  
  This builds the reflective muscle every senior leader needs.
  
  
• And if you’re the only woman in the room
  
  This helps you extract insights from a year where you were likely too busy to pause.

Before we start layering in goals or habits or strategies, we need your North Star — the clear, compelling vision of the leader you want to be at the end of 2026.

Because without a North Star, you default to doing what you’ve always done:

reacting, firefighting, hoping someone notices you, getting swept into everyone else’s priorities.

So today, I want you to imagine yourself 12 months from now.

It’s December 2026.

You’re closing out the year.

And you’re proud — truly proud — of who you became.

Let’s define that version of you.

Ask yourself:

What role do you want to be in?

Not the safe answer — the true one.

How do you want to be perceived?

Strategic? Influential? Confident? A trusted leader of leaders?

What do you want to be known for?

Your clarity? Your impact? Your ability to elevate a team?

What does influence look like for you?

Who knows your work? Who advocates for you? Where does your name show up?

And most importantly:

What version of YOU are you stepping into?

Because this is not about tasks — this is about identity and impact.

This truly matters

Whether this allows you to: 

• Imagine a future where you’re not just performing, but being seen.
• Stop thinking in short-term tasks and start thinking in long-term positioning.

• Finally get permission to name your desires instead of reacting to everyone else’s.
• Clarify the long-term trajectory toward that elusive executive role — the path you’re really on, or
• To finally anchor your strategic vision so the year doesn’t get swallowed by noise.

Now that you’ve named who you want to be by December 2026, it’s time for one of the most important — and empowering — parts of this process:

Identifying the gaps between where you are today and the leader you want to become.

This is not about judgment.

This is not about “not being enough.”

This is about clarity — the kind of clarity that accelerates your growth.

I want you to look at your 2026 vision and ask:

What skills or strengths do I need to develop to step into that version of myself?

(Strategic thinking, influencing, cross-functional leadership)

Where am I invisible or under-known in my organisation?

This is a big one — especially for so many brilliant women who’ve relied solely on performance instead of visibility and influence.

Where am I missing advocacy or sponsorship?

Because no one moves into senior leadership without people who open doors.

What confidence or voice gaps do I need to close?

Where are you still holding back? Not speaking up? Not claiming space?

Where am I overwhelmed — and what boundaries are missing?

If you want a different year, you cannot take the same patterns into 2026.

What strategic skills do I need to build?

This is often the difference between being seen as a doer… and being seen as a leader.

Each of us moves into clarity here in a deeply personal way:

If we’ve been historically invisible, this the moment you realize:

“I’m not overlooked because I’m not good enough.

I’m overlooked because the people who matter can’t see me.”

You finally understand which visibility gap to close.

If you’ve been focused on proving yourself it’s now time to recognize that your challenge isn’t a lack of skill — it’s that you’ve been investing in the wrong things.

It’s time to shift from execution → strategy.

If you’ve been constantly overextended it’s time to recognize that boundaries aren’t selfish — they’re leadership.

It’s time to recognize that overwhelm is not inevitable, it’s addressable.

If you’ve been rising strategically and you’re now focused on the next step then should now have clearly identified the competencies you needs to be seen as next-level-ready — influence, stakeholder management, strategic presence.

And if you’ve been the only woman in the room, it’s time to get clarity on refinement areas — the small shifts that will amplify your effectiveness at the senior table.

The 2026 Leadership Roadmap Framework

Now that you know:

✔ Your 2026 destination

✔ The gaps standing between you and that version of yourself

It’s time to build your actual leadership roadmap — the structure that will guide your growth all year long.

I like to use a simple, powerful framework made up of five core pillars.

Each pillar represents a strategic area of leadership growth that matters for every woman in tech — at every level.

Here they are:

1. Visibility & Influence

How will you become more known, more heard, more trusted?

(Especially for my Invisible Leaders — this is non-negotiable.)

2. Strategic Skill Development

What are the 1–2 strategic competencies that will make you Executive or director-ready?

Think: strategic thinking, communication, cross-functional leadership, decision-making.

3. Relationships & Sponsorship

Who needs to know your work?

Who are your advocates?

Who are your stakeholders?

Senior leaders are elevated through relationships, not effort alone.

4. Execution & Boundaries

What will you stop doing so you can create space for leadership?

How will you protect your energy?

What systems or habits will help you stay out of overwhelm?

5. Career Milestones & Opportunities

What tangible markers will move you forward?

This could be:

• A promotion conversation
  
  
• A stretch assignment
  
  
• A cross-functional leadership opportunity
  
  
• A board presentation
  
  
• A new scope of responsibility

How to Use These Pillars

Pick one goal per pillar for the year.

Just one.

Make it measurable, aligned with your North Star, and focused on impact — not volume.

This keeps your year strategic, focused, and deeply intentional.

The goal here is to know the number one area that is holding you back right now. Not 5 not 10. But one. You can always revisit this roadmap later in the year. But focus on identifying the one area that is your weak spot and focusing in on leveraging an improvement in that this year. 

Subtraction > Addition: What You Must Stop Doing in 2026

Now that you’ve mapped your goals, I want to give you one of the most counterintuitive — but powerful — parts of leadership planning:

Your growth in 2026 will be defined not by what you add…

but by what you stop doing.

Every effective leadership roadmap must include a Stop List.

Because without subtraction, you simply won’t have the capacity for the leadership habits, strategic thinking, and influence-building that move your career forward.

So I want you to identify the things that cannot come with you into 2026.

Here are a few to consider:

✨ Saying yes automatically

This is the fastest way to derail your leadership goals.

Overextended Operators — this one is especially for you.

✨ Over-committing to execution

If you’re still doing the work of three levels below you, you will never be seen as ready for the level above you.

✨ Doing work that isn’t yours anymore

Let someone else grow. Let the system hold more. Let execution go.

✨ Holding back your voice

If invisibility was comfortable last year, it cannot be this year.

✨ Waiting to be noticed

Leaders don’t wait. Leaders signal their ambition. Leaders shape perception.

Your Stop List is the boundary that protects your future self.

This is the moment to realize that boundaries and subtraction are not luxuries — they are leadership.

This is the time to recognize that people-pleasing and perfectionism are no longer compatible with growth.

This is the time to begin naming and releasing the behaviours that have kept you hidden.

This is the time to stops doing low-level work and align your behaviour with your executive trajectory.

This is the time to create space for strategic thinking, influence, and higher-level leadership.

Turn It Into a Quarterly Plan

A roadmap is powerful… but only if it becomes a plan you can implement.

And leaders plan differently than individual contributors.

This is where I want you to begin stepping into that next level of leadership.

Instead of setting dozens of resolutions or trying to overhaul everything at once, we break the year into four clear quarters, each with:

✨ A Quarterly Theme

The overarching focus that supports your 2026 North Star.

✨ Monthly Milestones

What progress looks like in small, achievable increments.

✨ Weekly Habits

The leadership habits that create consistency — visibility, boundaries, strategic thinking, stakeholder communication.

This is how senior leaders think.

This is how high performers sustain action without burning out.

And when you plan this way, your effort compounds.

Your visibility compounds.

Your influence compounds.

This is where 2026 stops being a vague aspiration and starts becoming a structured transformation.

When your roadmap becomes a quarterly plan, your success becomes predictable — not accidental.

And now we close with the step that ties this all together.

I want you to take a moment and notice something:

You’ve just created the foundation of a year that doesn’t happen to you —

a year you shape with intention, strategy, and leadership.

Because planning is power.

This isn’t your typical ‘get a job in X’ plan. But instead a plan tailored to where you need to gow. 

When we are women in a male focused world navigating systems not originally designed for us it is incredibly important to have this focus. 

When you choose clarity, you choose acceleration.

When you choose structure, you choose influence.

When you choose a roadmap, you choose the future you’ve been craving.

So here’s your final step:

Review this roadmap monthly.

Refresh it quarterly.

And return to your North Star whenever you feel yourself slipping back into old habits.

Your 2026 trajectory is not set by circumstance.

It’s set by your leadership.

And if you want support putting this into action — if you want accountability, clarity, or expert guidance as you build the next version of your career — I’d love to help.

If you’re ready to make this year the year you change your career trajectory I’d love to support you on this journey. Subscribe for more content on thie every week, and if you’d like to take the next step head over to the show notes and click on the link to book a discovery call with me. 

This is your year.

You’re ready for it.

And you’re more capable than you know.