Why is Goal Setting so Important for Leaders? Goals are good, with one prerequisite: they must be realistic and achievable. Unfortunately, some people set unrealistic goals for themselves, given their talent or their willingness to put the required effort into realizing them.
Avoid falling into this trap. All great leaders are goal orientated and excel at setting personal and work-related goals, they also make sure that not only are those goals grounded in reality, but that clear plans are put in place to realize them.
A common denominator seen in all successful leaders is that they set sensible personal goals, which serve to challenge them, for such, but are within their potential to achieve. They also know that just setting goals is only a first step; achieving them requires them to be both efficient and effective in moving towards them. Why is Goal-Setting so Important for Leaders?
Why is Goal-Setting so Important for Leaders? In setting your own personal goals, it is important to recognize that efficiency and effectiveness are to the same thing:
- Efficiency comes from having an approach to planning, such as a diary or Blackberry, which you use daily; using such tools provides structure to your day and allows you to priorities activities on an ongoing basis.
- Effectiveness is a different matter entirely and involves setting goals and working back from them to determine what needs to be done to realize them.
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To be really effective, you need to follow a few simple steps:
| Making Personal Goals Materials | ||
| Step 1 | Define your goal | Begin by defining your goal as clearly as possible. Be as specific as you can. |
| Step 2 | Identify key activities | List the key activities required for that goal. Do not, at this stage, think about when these will be done –Just focus on the broad activities that just happen to make this goal a reality. |
| Step 3 | Break activities into the task | Then, break these broader activities into a more specific tasks that need to be carried out within that activity. |
| Step 4
| Sequence the tasks | Now, think about whether certain tasks need to be carried out before others? Put the tasks into some form of logical sequence. This will help with deciding deadlines, etc. |
| Step 5 | Develop timelines | For each of the tasks that you identify, define timelines for when you would like to implement them, with a clear finish date. Depending on the goal in question, timelines might be quite specific or could be structured on a short, medium and long term basis. |
| Step 6 | Use a scheduling tool | Use your current scheduling tool to plan these tasks, including start and finish dates as appropriate. |
| Step7 | Monitor
Progress | Monitor progress at frequent and regular intervals so that any ‘drift’ can be identified early. |
This structured approach, with set timelines, will make you both efficient and effective in setting and realizing your goals. Why is Goal-Setting so Important for Leaders?
In a work context, you can apply the same principles of collectives’ goal setting because it is just as important to have a clear view of what you are trying to achieve for your organization, or that part of it for which you are responsible. To do this, you should work with your team, where possible, to define tangible and meaningful goals that serve to guide your efforts.
Then, define all the tasks and activities that need to happen in order to make those goals a reality, agreeing on timeframes, responsibilities and completion schedules. From that, you need to ensure that the work happens within the agreed deadline and to the standard required. You can review progress towards the goals through weekly and monthly meetings.
Once work-related goals are set, pay attention to building and sustaining ‘buy-in’ for them, motivating others and recognizing achievement along the way. If you do this well, you will be surprised at how your employees come to see the goals as being their own;
with the result that those who work for you tend to feel part of something bigger than themselves, of course, when collective goals are achieved, you should always recognise and reward performance across the team.
You also can apply these principles of personal and collective goal-setting when you are helping individual team members to set their personal goals for a forthcoming period as part of annual appraisals. It is a very simple framework -Which makes it attractive – but more importantly, it works.
