With the fog of the holidays lifting and the inbox, hopefully, emptying of the year end emails piled up over the last couple of weeks we are entering a most critical time for leadership – inspirational leadership.
Some of you have completed the task for 2024 already. Good for you! I hope you will reflect on how well you did. Others are just beginning this important work.
Good for you! The task: goal setting. The challenge: making them inspirational.
In recognition of 25 years of executive leadership, the marketing and communications team encouraged me to tweet 25 leadership lessons from my career. I reflect on them often and welcome the opportunity to share them with you. Chief among them was an important one on inspirational goal setting. In the original less than 140 characters twitter form:
Set audacious goals. Won’t make them if you don’t set them. Setting the goal = most powerful thing a leader can do!
But what needs to be considered in setting audacious and inspirational goals? It includes:
Necessary. It assures alignment with the strategic plan and leading priorities of the organization. It assures that the mission is accomplished, efforts are expanded, and individuals and communities are better served. It assures that the work gets done.
Helpful. Good leaders learn throughout the process. We can engage our staff and help them gain ownership of the goals to meet them. We can learn the perspective of our staff, organizational opportunities and challenges, and identify new ways forward to meet our goals. This ongoing engagement with our leaders and staff is vital to our success – let’s keep that communication and the relationships as a top priority in the year ahead.
Can those goals be inspirational too?
YES!
Indeed, the ordinary, mundane annual performance goals can be and should be inspirational. Actually, they must be. Success depends upon it. During my 30-year career we achieved the equivalent 17.5% annual growth for 30 consecutive years. A key to that remarkable track record of success is inspirational goal setting.
Don’t worry – you can ACE this vitally important task. Here are some tips:
- Align – This is the opportunity to align the interests and aspirations of your leaders and staff with the vision and mission of the organization. What new challenge do they want to take on? What skills do they want to develop? What new knowledge or expertise do they want to emerge with? How do this match up with your needs? Align these with the priorities of your organization.
- Challenge – In lieu of increasing last year’s goals by a random percentage (especially not the same as the previous year increase) dig deeper into what is possible. Can we both increase the topline and the quality of outcomes at the same time? What are the opportunities to set cross-functional goals to build your team and fuel greater success? How can we help make our leaders just uncomfortable enough with their goals to inspire them (and of course support them!) to achieve more?
- Envision – What needs to occur in the next 12 months to help ensure our success in the next five years? Is there a new market or service line or industry that we need to enter? What can be transformational?
Remember goal setting is, quite possibly, the most important strategic task you will complete this year. Let’s not sleepwalk through it. Let’s avoid a robotic approach. Let’s not copy and paste last year’s goals into 2024. Let’s not let the past limit what the future can be.
Embrace annual goal setting for what it is – one of the most critical leadership moments of the year. An unparalleled chance to put your stamp on the success of your organization this year. An opportunity: To envision anew. To dream. To succeed.
Your first step to ACE goal setting – make the goals audacious.
Please reach out if I can be helpful. Contact me here
Home 