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In my year-end and beginning of year conversations with coaching clients and colleagues, I ask about what they plan on doing to strengthen as leaders in the upcoming year. The answers are always thoughtful: Be in the moment more with my team members. –CEO
Teach more. –Director of Product Management
Spend more time out from behind my desk and with my team members. I want to go to them and offer help, not require them to come to me.
–SVP-Marketing
Read more in my field. –VP of Sales (Note from Art: I think he knows the reading one always warms my heart, but heck, he’s in sales, so he is always
selling!)
Take better care of myself so that I can take better care of my team. –Regional Director (Note from Art: I love the mind/body/results connection implied by his goal!)
And like the most thoughtful of those much discussed but oft ignored new year’s resolutions, the intent is good, but without creating a regimen to record, monitor and measure your performance, these great goals often fade in the rear-view mirror of the passing months. While that might sound like a great deal of work, it’s a small price to pay to move forward and remain focused on your important leadership goals. 5 Tips to Help Keep You on Track with Your Leadership Goals: 1. Where possible, translate your goals into digestible measures.
If your objective is to read more, set a quota of books per month or pages per week and record your results. The same applies for activity-based goals such as time with your team or number of customer visits. Whether you track them in your tried-and-true moleskine notebook or on your tablet or mobile device, as long as you find an easy way to record and then review success and progress, you are arming yourself with either positive reinforcement or encouragement to amp up your game. 2. Connect the measures to outcomes.
Add statements of impact to your quantitative measures. If more frequent staff interaction leads to updated professional development plans and an increasing number of stretch assignments, you’ve made the contact or face-time goal meaningful! 3. Publish your goals and ask people to hold you accountable.
Nothing prompts personal accountability by asking those impacted by your goals to keep you focused and committed. After a particularly painful 360-degree review, one manager recognized her need to provide more frequent feedback to her team members. They were hungry for it and she was not supplying it in adequate volume. She described her commitment to improving in this area and asked her team members to hold her accountable. They did and next year’s 360 was dramatically improved in this one area. 4. Find a Swim Buddy. If the group accountability is a bit uncomfortable for your area of improvement, find a colleague you trust to share unvarnished feedback and ask him/her
to keep you honest and focused. The Navy Seals use the term Swim Buddy to reference someone who is there with and for you in all circumstances during your training. The same technique works great in professional environments. Remember to offer to reciprocate. 5. Don’t let a momentary slip derail your positive intent.
Behavior change is difficult. If you fail in one week, month or quarter, reset your targets, but don’t give up. If improvement was easy, we would all be smoke-free, physically fit over-achievers.
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