Leadership skills aren’t something you collect and store away on a shelf. They’re tools that are in constant use. And just like tools, they need regular care and maintenance to stay sharp.
That’s where setting a few clear leadership goals can help. Honing your leadership qualities can help you succeed in your own career while making sure that your team stays strategically aligned and working toward the company’s vision.
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In this article, we’ll go into some more detail about why leadership goals are so important and share some objectives that could make you an even more effective leader. But first, let’s define what we mean when we talk about leadership goals.
What are leadership goals?
Leadership goals are a set of well-defined objectives that are designed to improve your skills as a team leader in some specific and measurable way. They can be short- or long-term goals, as long as they’re focused on an aspect of your personal development and comprise clear and attainable aims.
The importance of leadership goals
Leadership goals are more than just an exercise in self-improvement. By becoming a more effective leader, you can encourage a happier and more productive workplace, and ensure that the company vision stays in focus.
Employees look to leaders not just as managers but as mentors too. The example you set for colleagues when you work toward your leadership goals can motivate others to do the same.
How to set goals as a leader
No two leaders are the same, so how you go about setting objectives for yourself will be determined by how you manage and interact with your employees day to day.
Before setting out to improve one or more of your leadership skills, take some time to honestly appraise your own strengths and weaknesses as a leader. Identify the quality you want to work on, choose it as your leadership goal, and then create a subset of objectives that meet the SMART criteria—objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely.
An achievable aim can’t be ongoing. It must be something that can be completed and checked off a list. For example, a goal to “build relationships” doesn’t have a fixed end point, but “set aside one hour per week to have one-on-one meetings with employees” does.
With that in mind, we’ve put together a list of seven of the most important leadership goals to strive toward. How you break these down into smaller and more achievable objectives will be determined by your leadership style.
Seven vital leadership goals
Invest in your knowledge
Knowing your industry inside-out puts you at a big advantage as a business, as well as a leader. So you might set a goal of expanding your understanding of how your competitors operate, how your customers think, and where your industry is headed.
Leaders can fall foul of something known as “we’ve arrived” syndrome. This happens when a successful company achieves its main goals, so leaders lose focus and fail to notice that the industry is continuing to evolve around them. This goal helps you stay sharply focused on the trends and developments in your field, to set new and bigger goals for your business and inform your decision-making.
Improve your listening skills
Listening is one of those skills many people think they already have until they learn how to actually do it. Great listeners are trained to understand the message behind the words. They use open-ended questions to gain a deeper insight into what’s being said by inviting the speaker to phrase their argument from different vantage points.
Setting yourself a goal of becoming a better and more curious leader can make you more approachable to your teams. Learning how to listen can also involve practical changes such as having an open-door policy and setting specific hours where you’re available to any employee who wants to speak with you on any topic.
Build relationships
Try to foster stronger relationships with the people you work with. The potential benefits of this should be obvious enough. An open and honest line of communication between employees and leaders means building a shared knowledge base and gaining invaluable insight, which leads to more streamlined cooperation and better business outcomes.
Creating those relationships is the challenge, and it takes time. Pursuing this as a leadership goal could mean encouraging shared activities, involving employees in the decision-making process, or simply having regular one-on-one meetings with colleagues.
Work on your confidence
One of the hardest leadership qualities to achieve is presence. While this characteristic might seem like something people are born with, the most confident people you meet in everyday life have spent time developing and honing their people skills. Some may have been formally trained in the art of public speaking and communication.
Charismatic leaders are better able to influence and motivate employees to do their best work, so setting a goal to work on your confidence can help you progress your career and interact more effectively with your teams.
Learn to manage your time
Sometimes, what might seem to be a rapidly escalating workload or a gridlocked schedule can turn out to be a simple matter of time management. Pursue this goal if you’re feeling overwhelmed or believe you could be spending your time more efficiently.
What does your daily routine look like? Are you taking the time to slow things all the way down, delegate, and plan your next steps? If tasks are like cars at an intersection, good time management is the traffic warden directing the flow. Hone the skill and you might find that there really are some extra hours in the day.
Be more adaptable
The ability to react quickly and decisively to a fast-changing situation is crucial for achieving effective leadership, but adaptability isn’t simply about fostering a flexible mindset that can deal with unpredictable events. Adaptability is also about anticipating those outcomes and preparing for them by drawing on your expertise, your knowledge, and the skills and perspectives of your teams.
The unexpected is, by its very nature, difficult to plan for. By setting a leadership goal of becoming more adaptable and more open-minded to change, you place yourself and your team in the best possible position should you encounter an unfamiliar challenge.
Lead by example
Your actions can influence your employees’ attitudes and behaviors more than your words. Leading by example is a leadership technique that embraces this basic idea. It’s about walking the walk, and acting in a way that’s consistent with the core values you’re trying to inspire in other people.
Reaching this leadership goal demands a serious commitment to discipline, as even small contradictions between the things you say and the things you do can become magnified in the eyes of your employees.
Achieve this objective and you can begin to build better connections with your teams over time, all while furthering your company’s vision and enhancing your own distinct leadership style.
Steve Hogarty is a writer and journalist based in London. He is the travel editor of City AM newspaper and the deputy editor of City AM Magazine, where his work focuses on technology, travel, and entertainment.
Managing employee performance and the daily operations of a business is hard work. A business will often use metrics to evaluate employee performance measure progress towards specific goals. Employee performance goals should be clear and aligned with the business strategy. They should specify what measure will be used to evaluate and improve business outcomes. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are metrics that can assist in tracking the ability of your employees to meet your expectations as well as their impact on the business objectives.
Well-drafted KPIs are not goals, they are a means to express what you want to achieve and when in order to reach the goal, and to assess and manage employee performance. They are a tool to meet business outcomes. KPIs assist in reviewing business health and growth, and identifying new opportunities for the business.
At an employee level, they can be used to measure performance and manage underperforming staff members. You can use KPIs to structure incentive payments such as bonuses, and also identify training opportunities to upskill the workforce. The employee position description should include Key Performance Indicators. They also help set the expectation between employer and employee.
BrightHR together with BrightSafe can help set expectations, by delivering online health and safety e-learning modules for employees to do their training online, and you can use the Responsibilities Navigator to set up task reminders, delegate responsibilities, and save task records. You can store all relevant documents in the cloud for easy access and request read receipts to check if employees have accessed specific documents.
The Importance Of KPIs In A Business
A KPI is only as good as its ability to measure employee performance and to deliver real business outcomes by improving that performance. Managers need to adjust constantly to optimise performance in response to ever-changing business circumstances. This will mean that the business must give continuous constructive feedback to employees to communicate the areas that require improvement. BrightHR can ease some of the load for you and send you notifications of key dates, as well as generate Smart Reminders for employees based on their roster. You can also add notes to rosters or shifts for employees to see as they clock-in.
The benefit of having KPIs means employees are aware of what outputs or outcomes need to occur to satisfy their employer’s expectations. If the employee continuously fails to meet their KPIs it is recommended the business should actively manage their performance with on-going training and ultimately performance improvement plans.
Need some guidance when it comes to managing performance? Get in touch and we can discuss how we can help you.
Setting SMART KPIs
Each business has KPIs relevant to their specific industry. The metrics would depend on the size of your business. They could involve the overall performance of the business or smaller tasks related to each department. An example of a department focused (sales) metric would be a lead-to-sale conversion rate.
The key to setting KPIs is to identify desired outcomes for the business, and isolate means and ways employees can meaningfully help to achieve these outcomes. Employee goals should align with business goals which need to be constantly re-assessed in light of the changing business environment. The KPIs must relate to a specific desired business outcome. Whether it be increasing profit, reducing costs or acquiring a certain number of new customers,
Using the SMART criteria is an effective way to assist in drafting KPI’s that will be instrumental in achieving business objectives.
Each letter outlines certain criteria the KPI should meet:
- Specific: Is the objective specific enough?
- Measurable: Can the progress be quantified or easily measured?
- Attainable: How realistic is the goal? Can it be achieved within a reasonable time-frame?
- Relevant: Is the goal relevant to the needs of the business? Does it improve performance?
- Time-frame: How much time is needed to achieve the goal? Can it be done within the given timeframe?
To illustrate, the owner of a bicycle shop may set the following SMART KPIs for their employees:
1,000 bicycle sales per month, increase customer satisfaction by 10% within a financial quarter, increase total number of customers by 5% each financial quarter, and increase total revenue from bicycle accessories by 25% in the financial year.
BrightHR’s PoP can help you track employee expenses incurred while meeting SMART KPIs. You can view photographs of receipts and approve or decline reimbursement submissions on the go with this expense and mileage application.
Common Examples Of Business KPI’s
Below are some common examples of KPIs found in different industries:
- increase number of leads and prospects
- cost per lead through each channel
- level of customer engagement
- average value of purchases
- number of abandoned shopping carts for an e-commerce website
- monthly sales quota
- number of returned goods and warranties
- types of products/services used every day
Examples of KPIs can also include:
- Express your opinion and contribute to more team meetings
- Produce more work on an efficient and effective timeline
- Complete an advanced technical course to upgrade skills
- Develop and practice coaching skills to enable direct reports to perform at higher levels
- Provide high-quality customer service resulting in an 85% customer satisfaction rating on accuracy and timeliness
You can use BrightHR to store key information relating to employee performance securely in the cloud, and ask for read receipts to make sure employees have accessed this information.
Employsure can help you understand KPIs and help you implement them in your workplace. Call us for free initial advice on 1300 651 415.
Need some guidance when it comes to managing performance? Get in touch and we can discuss how we can help you.
This guide has been compiled on the basis of general information current at the time of publication and reflects an opinion only and is not intended to provide anything other than an opinion at any time. Your specific circumstances as well as any changes in circumstances after publication may affect the relevance, completeness or accuracy of this information. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim all liability for any errors or omissions contained in this information or any failure to update or correct this information. It is your responsibility to assess and verify the accuracy, completeness, currency and reliability of the information on this website, and to seek professional advice where necessary. Nothing contained on this website is to be interpreted as a recommendation to use any product, process or formulation or any information on this website. For clarity, Employsure does not recommend any material, products or services of any third parties.
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KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator.
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A KPI is a means of measuring performance within your business and tracking progress towards specific business outcomes.
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This will depend on the nature of your business, however, below are some that may be relevant:
- Sales Growth
- Varied Sources of Income
- A Diverse Client Base
- Profitability
- Cash Flow
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Some common examples of KPIs found in different industries:
- Increase number of leads and prospects
- Cost per lead through each channel
- Level of customer engagement
- Average value of purchases
- Number of abandoned shopping carts for an e-commerce website
- Monthly sales quota
- Number of returned goods and warranties
- Types of products/services used every day
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Management usually determine the KPIs as they should align to the strategic business goals and evolve in accordance with changing business circumstances.
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Use the following SMART criteria to create effective KPIs:
- Specific: Is the objective specific enough?
- Measurable: Can the progress be quantified or easily measured?
- Attainable: How realistic is the goal? Can it be achieved within a reasonable time-frame?
- Relevant: Is the goal relevant to the needs of the business? Does it improve performance?
- Time-frame: How much time is needed to achieve the goal? Can it be done within the given timeframe?
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Most Companies use KPIs of some kind, as they are essentially a means of measuring the progress made towards achieving company goals.
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A good performance indicator measures the performance necessary to reach the desired outcome but is not a goal in itself e.g.in the case of sales calls, you should not make the KPI the amount of calls made to prospects, but the amount of calls that converted to a sale.
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As many KPIs as is necessary to measure progress towards the objective. However too many KPIs can be overwhelming, so focus on the most important business objectives, and formulate a couple of KPIs for each one that measure progress in different ways.