There were six seconds left on the clock. We were down by three.
As a coach, you know there are moments in a game when the noise seems to disappear. The crowd may be loud. The pressure may be enormous. The scoreboard may be telling you that you’re running out of time.
But inside the huddle, none of that matters. What matters is what happens next.
We called timeout and brought our team together.
We didn’t have time for a long speech. We didn’t have time to revisit everything that had happened during the game. There was no benefit in talking about the shots we had missed, the defensive assignments we had blown or all the things we could have done differently.
We had six seconds.
We needed three points.
And we needed a plan.
Six Seconds Can Tell You A Lot About Leadership
We designed a play that we believed our opponent wouldn’t expect. It was designed as a diversion.
Everything about the action made it appear that the play was developing toward the right side of the court. Players moved that direction. Eyes followed them. Defenders reacted.
But the real action was happening somewhere else. On the left side of the court, a screen was being set for one of our best three-point shooters.
The play developed exactly as we had hoped. She came open. Wide open. The pass was right on target.
She caught the ball, took the shot and—
Buzzer.
The ball went through the basket.
Tie game. Overtime. Suddenly, five more minutes appeared on the clock.
And something else appeared with them:
Belief.
Our players were fired up. The bench was engaged and ready. They were confident. They had just watched a seemingly impossible situation turn into another opportunity.
We scored first in overtime. We took the lead. And we never gave it back. We won the game.
I’ve thought about moments like that many times throughout my career because leadership often looks a lot like those final six seconds.
The clock is running. Pressure is increasing. People are tired. There is more you wish you had accomplished. The scoreboard may not look exactly the way you hoped it would. And everyone is looking toward the leader.
What do we do now?
Welcome to the fourth quarter.
October Is the Fourth Quarter for Organizational Leaders
When October arrives, organizations enter their own version of the fourth quarter.
There are approximately three months remaining in the year. Annual goals that seemed far away in January suddenly have deadlines attached to them.
Budgets are being examined. Projects need to be completed. Sales goals need to be reached. Strategic initiatives are being measured. Performance reviews may be approaching.
And while leaders are trying to finish the current year, conversations about the next year have already begun.
That’s when an understandable temptation emerges:
Push harder.
More meetings. More urgency. More emails. More goals. More pressure. More hours.
But I’m not convinced that asking people to do more is always the answer. In that timeout huddle, we didn’t need our players to suddenly become more talented.
We didn’t need them to learn an entirely new offense or make up for everything that had happened during the previous 39 minutes and 54 seconds.
We needed them to understand what mattered right now. That’s one of the greatest responsibilities of a fourth-quarter leader.
When everything feels important, great leaders create clarity around what matters most.
Here are six leadership lessons from those six seconds.
1. Check the Scoreboard—But Don’t Stare at It
We knew the score. Down three. Six seconds.
Ignoring the scoreboard would have been irresponsible. But staring at it wouldn’t have changed anything.
Leaders need to know their numbers.
Revenue. Retention. Engagement. Productivity. Turnover. Customer satisfaction. Deadlines. Budgets. Performance targets.
The scoreboard matters. But the scoreboard doesn’t lead the team.
You do.
Numbers tell you what has happened. They don’t always tell you why it happened or what your team needs next. A leader can become so consumed by a year-end target that people begin to feel like numbers themselves. That’s dangerous.
As you enter the fourth quarter, look at your scoreboard and ask:
- Where are we?
- Where do we need to be?
- What is realistically possible?
- And most importantly: What does my team need from me to get there?
The scoreboard should inform your leadership. It shouldn’t consume it.
2. Narrow Your Team’s Priorities
With six seconds remaining, we couldn’t run ten plays. We needed one. That’s clarity.
Yet inside organizations, leaders sometimes respond to urgency by expanding priorities rather than narrowing them. Suddenly everything becomes critical.
Finish this project. Launch that initiative. Improve these numbers. Attend this meeting. Prepare next year’s plan. Complete the year-end report. And don’t forget the other seventeen things we’ve been talking about since March.
When everything is a priority, your team doesn’t have priorities. They have a list. There is a difference.
Fourth-quarter leadership requires the courage to decide: What matters most now?
Maybe there are three things your team absolutely needs to accomplish before the year ends.
What are they?
- Name them.
- Communicate them.
- Repeat them.
And then ask another powerful leadership question: What can we stop doing?
Sometimes the best fourth-quarter strategy isn’t adding something. It’s removing something. Give your people permission to focus.
3. Don’t Let Pressure Steal Your Ability to Lead
Imagine if I had walked into that timeout huddle panicking. “We only have six seconds!” “We’re down three!” “We have to score!” “Don’t mess this up!”
Would any of that have helped? Of course not.
My players already knew the situation. What they needed from me wasn’t more anxiety. They needed composure, direction, and a plan they could believe in.
Your employees aren’t much different. When the fourth quarter gets difficult, they probably already know it.
They see the numbers, feel the pressure, and know the deadlines.
Repeating the urgency louder doesn’t necessarily create better performance. Sometimes it creates fear. And fear can shrink creativity, communication and decision-making precisely when you need those things most.
Your team doesn’t need you to panic in the fourth quarter. They need you to lead it.
Leadership doesn’t mean pretending there isn’t pressure. It means helping people operate effectively within it.
4. Trust the People You’ve Been Developing
Our final play depended on more than one person. Yes, one player eventually took the shot. But someone had to set the screen. Another person had to create the diversion. And someone else had to make the pass. Everyone had to understand the play. And everyone had to execute their role. That’s teamwork.
We couldn’t stop with six seconds remaining and suddenly begin building trust. That work had already happened. This is something leaders sometimes forget. When the pressure rises, there’s a temptation to take over.
We micromanage, make every decision, insert ourselves into every conversation, and start doing people’s jobs for them because the stakes feel too high to let go.
But the fourth quarter isn’t the time to abandon the people you’ve spent all year developing. It’s the time to trust them.
Ask yourself:
- Have I prepared my people to make decisions?
- Do they understand their roles?
- Do they know how their work connects to the larger goal?
- Do they trust one another?
- And do they know I trust them?
The fourth quarter often reveals whether empowerment was truly part of your culture or merely something you talked about when the pressure was low.
5. Great Leaders Know When to Change the Play
Our opponent expected us to go one direction. So we went another. That’s strategy. Sometimes leaders become so focused on completing the original plan that they forget leadership requires adaptability.
What made sense in January may not make sense in October.
The marketplace may have changed. Your customers may have changed. Your people may have changed. Technology may have changed. Resources may have changed.
The question isn’t:
“How do we stubbornly complete everything we said we would do?”
The better question is:
“Given what we know now, what’s the smartest play?”
That may mean changing the plan or reallocating resources. It could mean letting go of an initiative. It may mean asking someone unexpected to step into a larger role. It could also mean trying something your competition, or even your own organization, doesn’t expect.
Changing the play isn’t necessarily a sign that the original plan failed.
Sometimes it’s evidence that the leader is paying attention.
6. When You Get Five More Minutes, Don’t Waste Them
This may be my favorite part of the story. We made the shot. But we hadn’t won anything yet. We had simply earned another opportunity.
There were five new minutes on the clock. And our team treated them differently. We were energized. We believed in each other. Thankfully, we scored first and took control. And, most importantly, we finished.
Organizations experience these moments, too. A new customer says yes. One of your struggling employees turns a corner. A project receives an extension. The possibility of a new partnership emerges. A problem gets solved. Your team finally has the breakthrough conversation it has been avoiding.
Suddenly, there are metaphorically five more minutes on the clock.
What happens next matters.
Momentum is powerful, but momentum without execution eventually disappears.
When your team gets a win in the fourth quarter, celebrate it. Then use it.
Ask:
- What did we just learn?
- What worked?
- What changed?
- How can we carry this confidence forward?
One success can remind a tired team what it’s capable of.
Sometimes belief is exactly what the fourth quarter needs.
Your Team May Not Be Disengaged. They May Be Tired.
There’s another reality leaders need to recognize as the year winds down. Your people have already played three quarters. They’ve been working, solving problems, managing customers, navigating change, covering vacancies, learning new systems, balancing responsibilities outside of work, and responding to unexpected challenges.
Some may be exhausted. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re disengaged. It may mean they’re human.
Strong fourth-quarter leaders learn to recognize the difference. Not everyone needs another motivational speech.
Some people need clarity. Others need encouragement. Still others need accountability. Many need coaching. And some need recognition.
Some may simply need their leader to notice how much they’ve already been carrying. That’s why leadership can never become entirely transactional.
You aren’t merely managing the work.
You’re leading the people doing the work.
The Fourth Quarter Reveals Your Team Culture
It’s easy to talk about organizational culture when things are going well. Pressure tests it. The fourth quarter reveals whether your organization truly has trust.
Whether people communicate. Whether accountability exists. Whether employees feel safe enough to raise concerns. Whether leaders listen. Whether people understand the mission.Whether team members support one another. Whether everyone is willing to play their role, even when someone else gets to take the shot.
Think about our final play. The player setting the screen didn’t get her name in the scorebook for that shot. The players creating the diversion didn’t receive three points, nor did the passer get credit for making the basket. But without them, there was no open shot.
That is what great teams understand.
Not everyone takes the winning shot, but everyone can contribute to creating it.
Organizations need people who understand that their contribution matters even when they’re not the person receiving the applause.
And they need leaders who make sure those contributions are seen.
Before You Ask Your Team to Finish Strong…
October is a great time to gather your leadership team and have a different kind of fourth-quarter conversation.
Not:
“How can we get more out of everybody?”
Instead, ask:
- What is the scoreboard telling us?
- What are the two or three things that matter most between now and the end of the year?
- What distractions can we remove?
- Where does our team need clarity?
- Who needs support?
- Who needs to be challenged?
- Who is ready for a bigger role?
- What strengths should we lean into?
- Where do we need to change the play?
- And perhaps most importantly: What can we do as leaders to help our people succeed?
Those questions create a very different fourth quarter.
Don’t Just Finish the Year. Lead the Finish.
Six seconds.
That’s all we had.
We couldn’t change the first quarter.
We couldn’t replay the second.
We couldn’t get back anything that happened in the third.
And we couldn’t change the first 9 minutes and 54 seconds of that final quarter.
We could only decide what to do with the time that remained.
So we made a plan.
We trusted one another.
Everyone played their role. One player got open. Another delivered the pass. The shot went up. The buzzer sounded. And the ball went through the basket.
Five more minutes.
Another opportunity. And we made it count.
Maybe that’s the real lesson of fourth-quarter leadership.
You don’t need to spend October wishing you’d done something differently in February. You don’t need to overwhelm your people with everything that remains unfinished. And you don’t need to squeeze every last ounce of energy out of your team just to say you hit the number.
You need to look at the clock. Understand the scoreboard. Gather your people. Create clarity. Trust the team you’ve built.
And call the next play.
Because finishing strong isn’t about squeezing everything you can out of your people. It’s about bringing out the best in them when it matters most.
Your team doesn’t need you to panic in the fourth quarter.
They need you to lead it.
A Fourth-Quarter Leadership Challenge
Before your next leadership meeting, write down the three things that matter most between now and the end of the year.
Then ask your team three questions:
- What should we keep doing?
- What should we stop doing?
- What do you need from leadership to help us finish strong?
You may discover that the winning fourth-quarter play isn’t doing more. It may be getting everyone aligned around what matters most.
At Courtside Leadership, we help leaders build teams that communicate, trust, adapt, hold one another accountable and perform when it matters most.
If your organization is entering the fourth quarter knowing your team could use greater clarity, stronger alignment or a renewed sense of purpose, let’s start the conversation.
Don’t just hope your team finishes strong. Lead them there.
culture, Leadership, Teamwork