Every June, the same thing happens. The holiday requests start stacking up. The office empties in waves. Meetings get cancelled. Inboxes slow to a trickle. And somewhere in the middle of it all, a manager looks around and thinks: how do I keep this team moving?
The summer slowdown is real. But it’s also misunderstood. Most managers treat it as a problem to be managed — a gap between now and September when things “get back to normal.” The best managers treat it differently. They treat it as an opportunity.
Here’s how to be one of them.
Why Summer Hits Harder Than You Think
It’s not just about headcount. When key people are out, decision-making stalls. Projects that need three people to progress sit waiting. Communication gets patchy. And the people who are in the office can feel oddly demotivated — carrying more than their share, uncertain what to prioritise, wondering if anyone’s actually paying attention.
Left unmanaged, the summer period doesn’t just slow things down. It creates drift. Teams lose rhythm. Small problems that would normally get caught early go unnoticed. And come September, you’re not picking up where you left off — you’re spending the first month trying to remember where you were.
Shift Your Mindset First
Before you do anything tactical, get your thinking right.
Summer is not a reduced version of the rest of the year. It’s a different operating context — and it calls for a different management style. The goal isn’t to pretend it’s business as usual. It’s to be intentional about what you do prioritise, what you park until September, and how you keep your people engaged and valued in the meantime.
That means letting go of the idea that a quieter period is a failing. It isn’t. It’s a natural rhythm. Your job is to work with it, not against it.
Five Things Great Managers Do Differently in Summer
1. Triage the workload honestly
Not everything on your team’s plate is equally urgent. Summer is the perfect time to do a proper triage. Ask yourself: what must be delivered before September? What can be paused without real consequence? What would actually benefit from a slower pace — more thinking time, more careful crafting?
Be honest with your team about what you’re deprioritising and why. It reduces stress, increases focus, and signals that you’re leading with intention rather than just hoping for the best.
2. Use the space for development
This is the one that most managers miss. When the pressure is lower and the distractions are fewer, it’s actually an ideal time for development conversations, coaching, and skills-building.
A quieter week isn’t a wasted week — it’s a window. Use it for the conversations you never quite get to in Q4. The one-to-one where you explore what someone really wants from their career. The feedback conversation you’ve been putting off. The chance to give a team member stretch responsibility while others are away.
3. Protect the people who are in
One of the biggest summer management mistakes is unconsciously overloading the people who didn’t take leave in July. They pick up the slack. They attend the meetings that need covering. They respond to the emails no one else is around for. And they do it quietly, while their colleagues are posting Instagram photos of Italian lakes.
Notice it. Name it. Thank people specifically for what they’re carrying. And where possible, build in some reciprocal flexibility — an early finish, a work-from-home day, a low-pressure Friday afternoon.
4. Keep communication simple and visible
When teams are fragmented across holidays, communication gaps widen fast. A simple, consistent rhythm matters more than ever.
You don’t need elaborate systems. A brief weekly update — even a short email or Teams message — that tells people what’s happening, what’s been decided, and what’s coming up does the job. The goal is that nobody comes back from two weeks off feeling like they landed on a different planet.
5. Plan the September re-entry now
The teams that hit the ground running in September are the ones whose managers planned for it in June. Before the summer scatters everyone, agree on: what the key priorities will be when everyone’s back, any decisions that need to wait until then, and what a successful start to Q4 looks like.
Even a 30-minute team conversation in late June — “what do we want to have achieved, and what do we want to pick up in September?” — pays dividends. It gives people something to come back to, not just come back from.
A Word on Your Own Energy
It’s easy to spend so much effort managing the team through summer that you forget you’re human too.
If you’re the kind of manager who finds it hard to switch off — who checks emails on holiday, who feels guilty not being available — summer is a good time to examine that pattern. The best managers model the behaviour they want their teams to have. If you don’t take proper rest, you’re quietly communicating that rest isn’t really valued here.
Take the holiday. Disconnect properly. You’ll come back sharper, and your team will notice.
The Bigger Picture
Summer is a stress test for management culture. In organisations where managers trust their teams, communicate well, and lead with intention, the slowdown is absorbed without drama. In organisations where those things are missing, summer exposes the gaps.
So rather than asking “how do I survive the next eight weeks?”, ask a better question: what does the way my team handles summer tell me about how we operate the rest of the year?
The answer might be more useful than you expect.
Photo by Link Hoang on Unsplash
