The EOFY Leadership Audit, Four Questions to Ask Before FY27.
Jun 19, 2026Edge of Possibilities | Liz Murray | Leadership Development
Reading time: 5 minutes
June 30 is almost here.
And if you're like most leaders right now, you're heads down. Finalising budgets. Closing out performance reviews. Getting through the list.
But before you cross the line into a new financial year, there's a harder question worth asking than did we hit the numbers.
Who were you as a leader this year? And are you proud of it?
Because your budget resets on 1 July. Your leadership patterns don't.
Why EOFY matters for more than your budget
Most leaders treat the end of financial year as a purely commercial checkpoint, numbers, targets, forecasts. But it's also one of the few natural pause points in the year where you have permission to stop and reflect.
The problem is that most leaders skip the reflection and go straight to planning. New targets for FY27. New goals. A clean slate.
Except it isn't a clean slate. Your leadership patterns don't reset on 1 July just because the calendar does. The standard you let slide in February will still be there in the new financial year. The conversation you kept avoiding will still be there. The team member you kept meaning to invest more time in will still be feeling the gap.
A new financial year doesn't reset your leadership. Only you can do that. And the only way to do it is to get honest, right now, about what you actually ran this year.
Not what you intended. Not what you planned. What you actually did, consistently, under pressure, when it was inconvenient.
The EOFY leadership audit
Below are four questions worth sitting with before 30 June. Be honest. Nobody is watching.
I sometimes call this exercise the Leadership Mirror, because that's exactly what it does, it reflects back the truth of how you actually led this year, not how you intended to lead.
Question 1: Did you hold your standards consistently?
Or did you let things slide when the timing felt wrong?
Think about the moments you told yourself it wasn't the right time to have that conversation. Add them up. That's your drift score on standards.
Question 2: Did you make clear decisions and stand by them?
Or did you second guess yourself and keep revisiting?
Your team watches how you decide more than what you decide. Inconsistency here costs you authority faster than almost anything else.
Question 3: Did you invest in your people, or did you manage their output?
There's a difference between checking metrics and genuinely understanding what your team members need to grow. Which one did you do more of this year?
Question 4: When pressure hit, did you lead from the front?
Or did you react, withdraw, or become someone your team didn't quite recognise?
Pressure reveals pattern. What did yours reveal in FY26?
What to do with your answers
Sit with those four questions honestly. The answers are your leadership audit for the year, and they will tell you more about where you stand than any performance review ever could.
If you noticed a pattern while answering, you're not alone. Most leaders carry at least one of these into a new financial year without realising it, not because they don't care, but because they don't have a clear enough picture of exactly where their authority is strong and where it's slipping.
That's exactly what the Authority Drift Index is built for. Think of it as a deeper version of this same exercise, a free five minute self assessment that measures your leadership authority across four pillars and gives you a specific, honest result, not generic advice, your pattern, your next move.
It's the most useful five minutes you'll spend on your leadership before FY27 starts.
👉 https://www.edgeofpossibilities.com.au/authority-drift-index-take-the-quiz
ABOUT LIZ MURRAY
Liz Murray is an Executive Leadership Advisor with over 20 years experience. She works with leaders and high performers who are ready to stop managing and start leading, with clarity, presence, and authority.
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