From Manager to Leader
There is a lot of confusion about the differences between management and leadership. They both involve deciding what needs to be done, creating a network of people to accomplish goals and ensuring that the work actually gets done. Management and leadership complement each other but they do so in a very different way.
So what is the difference?
John P. Kotter differentiates management from leadership in his book What Leaders Really Do. He claims that management copes with complexity but leadership copes with rapid change. Kotter has discovered 3 major differences between the management and leadership:
- Management involves setting goals, planning, budgeting and allocating resources. Leadership involves setting direction and developing a vision of the future along with strategies to achieve this vision.
- Management involves organizing, staffing, setting-up job descriptions, recruiting qualified individuals, delegating responsibilities and devising systems to monitor execution. Leadership involves aligning people, communicating the vision and getting a commitment to achieve it.
- Management provides control, solves problems, monitors results versus objectives and takes corrective actions to resolve deviations. Leadership provides motivation and inspiration. It keeps people moving in the right direction despite challenges by appealing to their values and emotions.
Most organizations are over-managed and under-led because they focus mainly on formal long-term planning and budgeting rather than on setting direction. Long-term planning is a deductive process, while setting direction is an inductive process. Long term planning worked well in the 20th Century when the markets did not change rapidly. In the 21st Century markets are characterized by rapid change and we must adapt to volatile market dynamics. Therefore rapid change is essential to be able to compete in the new dynamic business environment.
But here is the problem…
Managers try forcing change through formal organizational systems, structures and incentives. They fail to drive change because they don’t involve informal stakeholders (like customers or suppliers). Managers communicate short-term plans effectively through the formal organization but when it comes to communicating a whole new future – we need a leader.
Communicating a new vision successfully depends solely on leadership – not management. Leaders tend to go beyond the mechanical structure of the organization. While managers count on the power of their titles, leaders count on rapport, integrity and trustworthiness to drive change.
Well managed organizations are not necessarily well led organizations. The employees of well managed organizations are effective within the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). The same employees are powerless when they try to initiate change outside the SOPs. When they attempt to initiate change, they receive responses like “That’s against our policy”, “We cannot afford it”, and “Shut-up and do as you are told”.
Strong leaders resolve these challenges by providing a strong alignment and drive change beyond SOPS. While managers focus on “best practices”, leaders create “new practices”. While managers adapt to the culture, leaders create a new culture. Leaders align employees with the new direction and ensure that they are not reprimanded, even when they do not comply with the policy.
For example, managing a factory requires an effective control system to respond immediately to deviations from the plan. This factory requires well organized, trained and disciplined employees to run the plant efficiently. But achieving a bold vision requires the kind of energy that only motivated, empowered and inspired employees can achieve. Control systems will not drive employees toward a new direction. Leaders, not managers, will evoke feelings of achievement, a sense of belonging, recognition, self-esteem, and a valuable purpose. Such feelings will prompt powerful responses.
Leaders rather than managers will motivate their people by articulating the business vision, involve people in how to achieve the vision, provide coaching, empower and enhance self-esteem and reward success. This not only gives people a sense of accomplishment but also makes them feel like they are part of the company. They feel that the organization really cares about them. The more change characterizes the business, the more the business needs leadership over management.
While managers tend to develop depth of expertise in their professional discipline, leaders must develop width of experience beyond their professional disciplines. These leaders are finance professionals that assume operational responsibilities or operational managers that assume sales positions. Creating multidisciplinary task-forces or small business units are great ways to develop new leaders.
Promotion to a management position is a milestone in our career. There is no promotion to leadership. Becoming a leader is a personal decision and a milestone of personal development rather than career development. The leadership milestone requires focus on 3 areas: First, set vision and direction toward change. Second, align people by communicating through an informal network of relationships. Third, motivate and inspire people to “buy-in” to the vision by evoking feelings, emotions and inner values.
Handling Objections
It was a long meeting, much longer than the allotted time. The discussion evolved into confrontation. We ended up on a dead-end incapable of making a decision.
It started after presenting a proposal that received strong objections. I exhausted every possible justification in an effort to convince the team to support the proposal. More pushing was met with more resistance. We ended the debate with a decision to come back to it later. In other words… procrastination.
We face these situations day in and day out. Don’t we? It is an art more than a science to win a confrontation. Right?
Wrong.
The problem is not about the “art”. Trying to “win” doesn’t work. Mutual resolution is important even if the resolution does not fit our game plan. Easier said than done.
Confrontations happen and unexpected objections occur. Can we avoid these kinds of obstacles? No. Expect them.
“Be Prepared”.
That’s the motto of the Boy and Girl Scouts.
“Be prepared for what?” Someone once asked Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of Boy Scouts.
“Be prepared for anything” was his reply.
No wonder that kids who are scouts become good leaders. They are prepared.
I was not prepared for objections. However, when no alternative solutions were presented, the manipulations started. At this junction we can easily start manipulating rather than persuading. After all, we want to “win”. We can easily drift into dictating our way to make a decision, which will probably result in lousy execution, rather than working our way to a meaningful win-win outcome.
Commanding or dictating our way toward a resolution may work in few situations (for example, time limited crisis or military battle). A military officer commanding on the battle field will eventually mix his decision making process with consensus management in the war room when he will become a General.
This is Situational Leadership.
Situational Leadership was developed by Paul Hersey, professor and author of the book Situational Leader, and Ken Blanchard, leadership guru and author of The One Minute Manager.
The fundamental underpinning of Situational Leadership is that there is no “best” style of leadership. Effective leadership is task-relevant. The most successful leaders are those that adapt their leadership style to the majority of the group they lead (or influence) and to the task that needs to be accomplished.
Decision “commanding” does not work in the boardroom. We have to make our way to the hearts of the people we want to influence, aligning our persuasion methods to the situation. It is beyond what people say. It is about how people feel. For example, someone may object to a proposal because they are a “do it right” person (regardless of the circumstances) while the proposer is a “do it now” person who needs a solution quickly even if it is not 100% right. Confrontation guaranteed.
We have to look for the underwater currents to avoid drifting in unwanted directions. Thorough preparation is needed. So is commitment to learn the various personalities of the people we work with and determination to develop a relationship.
We grow into leadership by developing our persuasion skills. Persuasion instead of dictation makes things happen.
Visualize You Are on Top of Your Game
I pushed off the lift chair and skied slowly to the beginning of the run. I paused for a few seconds running rapidly in my mind the new techniques learned in the previous 3 days. Lean forward, body toward downhill, hands somewhat in front, knees slightly bent, shift weight to downhill leg pressing the ski edges, uphill leg smoothly and lightly paralleling the downhill legs…Still mumbling other instructions when I decisively pushed forward accelerating rapidly down the mountain. Freezing wind and snowflakes hit my face. My mind ignored the storm while screaming muscles fought the steep slope and rapid turns. Screening again the techniques, I struggled to stay in control of the unbelievable speed. Suddenly, the slope changed to a gentle angle approaching a chair lift. I shouted with joy….and opened my eyes. It was dark in the room. My family was sleeping and I was in bed visualizing the following ski day.
For 3 days I had made progress using visualization before a ski session. Each day moved me toward better ski techniques and skills.
Visualization is a well known technique that athletes use. Seasoned basketball, football and tennis players screen game situations in their mind before an important match. Track and field athletes visualize high jumps, distance jumps or the 100 meter sprints before they actually go on the track.
There are 3 kinds of visualizations – Have Visualization, Be Visualization and Do Visualization.
The Have Visualization is visualizing what we want to have in life. It has been promoted in recent years as the “law of attraction” fad. We cannot argue with the popularity of “The Secret”. Thousands are still waiting to have their new house and car by visualizing down to the smallest details.
The Be Visualization is visualizing what we want to become. We can visualize that we look fit to get fitter. We can visualize ourselves appearing in TV and magazines to become famous. We can visualize ourselves wealthy to get rich. The Be Visualization focuses our mind on our goals. It creates a clear vision of what we want to do. This vision will motivate us and keep us on track toward achieving that vision. This might happen as long as visualization is followed by action. Action is the only differentiator. Otherwise, Be Visualization is just a day dreaming.
The Do Visualization is visualizing what we want to do. This is a no-nonsense, straight forward technique that is very powerful when you are taking action. We can take advantage on Do Visualization to be on top of our game exactly like top athletes.
To champion our leadership game we should visualize it before we take action.
I gave a speech a few days ago and visualized the whole speech days before. Upon reaching the venue, I spent some time with the attendees to get to know them. From the minute the speech started, my subconscious mind ran the show based on the visualization preparation while my conscious mind interacted with the listeners. No slides or notes were needed. After the speech, I checked my documents and found that not one topic was missed.
Visualization is a leadership skill we can use to enhance our performance, develop our capabilities, and enrich our lives. More importantly, visualization will help us to make an impact on other people lives. Isn’t it what leadership all about? Visualize that.
The 3 Year Secret
Many people want to change jobs in order to become happier and successful. After the change, they find that they are still unhappy and unsuccessful in their new jobs. Then what? They start “shopping” for the next job believing it will ultimately make them more happy and successful. The rat race for the “perfect” job they will never find continues because they never ask “is it about the job or is it about me?”
New comers to an organization, at every level, tend to focus on the shortcomings of their new employer instead of their own. They do not think about the changes they need to make in order to be happy and successful. Yet, it is highly unlikely that an organization will change dramatically just to meet their expectations. It is their responsibility to Adopt, Adjust and Accommodate.
It is very hard, on any rung of the corporate ladder, to do this. The more senior the position, the more difficult it is. What do these people do? Do they quit their jobs and move on to another company or do they choose to Adopt, Adjust and Accommodate?
I have personal insight into this issue. After 3 years in each of my management positions, my effectiveness on the job escalated exponentially. Other colleagues tell me they have experienced the same thing. It’s as if after the 3 year milestone one breaks through all the initial barriers and begins fulfilling true potential.
What happens at this milestone of 3 years?
We know our business model to the smallest details, we know our customers’ needs wants and desires, we know our markets and we know our industry. It is a combination of knowledge and experience. But above all it is the point when we fully assimilate our company’s mission and values. We Adopt them as our own. We Adjust to the company culture and the unique way the business is run. We Accommodate the requirements of the stake holders – shareholders, board, top management, etc.
For this reason, I am reluctant to hire managers that do not break through the 3 year milestone. 80% to 90% of the resumes received by my office for new management postings are of people that have spent 1-2 years on their jobs. Some people have spent only a few months in a job and are already soliciting a new one. More astonishing, they claim achievements that most of us cannot claim in a lifetime. Should we take these candidates seriously? Is job hopping a life pattern that they will continue after they join us?
There are 2 lessons here.
The first lesson is for employees. We should stick to our employer for at least 3 years. During the first 3 years we will do our utmost to Adopt, Adjust and Accommodate without losing our ability to take initiative and add value to the company. At the end of 3 years, we are in a better position to judge whether our employer fits our life mission.
The second lesson is for employers. We should hire team members who have performed consistently for the same employer for more than 3 years. Five years is even better. These are leaders with stamina. These are leaders that will stay long enough to grow their personality and commitment to the organization through time. These are leaders that will stick to it long enough to make genuine and long lasting contributions to the organization and all who work with them.
Time is VALUE in leadership.
Arrogance Spells Disaster
Between 1922 and 2007, more than 13,000 people have put themselves at risk to pursue their dream of standing on the summit of Mount Everest. 73% of them didn’t reach the summit. 208 of them died.
With so much at stake, Everest may be the best laboratory to observe arrogance and how arrogance threatens organizations. Like the climbing teams on Everest, when a company near the top fails to summit, you will find leaders who think only they know what’s best for their teams and organizations.
In their book High Altitude Leadership, Chris Warner and Don Schmincke reveal their mountaineering experiences as metaphors for leaders. With experience drawn from Chris’ 150 brutal and most difficult mountaineering expeditions, they present a new approach to leadership.
Warner and Schmincke claim that arrogant leaders ignore warnings in boardrooms just as they do on mountain tops. They pursue their own selfish dreams, and do a lot of damage by putting others at risk, sometimes fatally. Arrogant leaders act as if the rules don’t apply to them.
For years, I believed that charisma and confidence were important leadership virtues for me to have. One day, a colleague told me that my “confidence” was perceived by many as arrogance. A serious blow to my ego, along with a gift of humility.
Leadership greatness can only emerge when fueled by humility.
Humility fuels high performance. It improves our judgment by tempering our ego. Although we can be good and effective leaders with big egos, making the leap from good to great requires something extra. We must learn to balance our big egos with humility.
Often we don’t appreciate the virtue of humility in our leaders. The most aggressive, charismatic, egocentric leaders I worked closely with in the past, have vanished from the business arena. Most of the humble, empathic and thoughtful leaders are still at the top of the game. They are CEOs and Chairpersons of highly successful organizations.
Humility is one of the most important leadership virtues. Arrogance is very dangerous. As a student on the climb to leadership greatness, whenever I forget to balance my ego with humility, I learn the hard way how disastrous arrogance is. It can and will kill you AND your team, before you reach the summit.
Abundance Leadership
James (name changed) is a brilliant CEO. I had the chance to work closely with him years ago. He was a top graduate of an Ivy League university and acknowledged by the investment community as a sharp leader. I learned from James the importance of competitive management. James knew every single figure of his competitors’ business results. He benchmarked every business parameter of his company against the competition. He highlighted the importance of gaining market share and getting a better gross profit margin than the competition. If he didn’t beat the competitors…he bought them.
It was “the best way” of doing business: competitive strategy, strategic positioning, competitive advantage and core competencies. Wow! All of the buzz words taught in business school. We even practiced the well-known Harvard professor, Michael Porter’s five forces strategy. But things got weird when James started monitoring in real time the share price of the company against the competition.
The following year, the electronic industry faced major turmoil. Our company revenue plunged and our bottom line turned as red as blood. While we made enormous efforts to cut costs and stop the drop in our net income, James appeared at the next board meeting more confident than ever. In a dramatic speech followed by a business analysis, he claimed that the company was doing very well compared to the competition. After all, the competition lost a lot of money too. The Board believed him. It was a convenient “truth” they wanted to adopt.
I did not!
There is much more to leadership than following the competition. Competitive leadership is not effective leadership. James is still the CEO. The company has merged with and acquired competitor companies since then. Earnings have never recovered. The shares have continued to sink.
There is infinite abundance in the universe. We don’t have to take from others to be successful. If we accept this philosophy, we focus energy away from competition and towards creativity. James has brilliance and ability. If he tunnels his talents toward creating new products, businesses and services instead of taking market share from competitors, he would add much more value to the stake holders.
This is also true in our personal lives. We can get what we want without taking it from someone. By using our unique perception, reasoning, imagination and intuition to enrich, we become a creator of new ideas and profits, rather than a taker of existing ones.
Do you believe Steve Jobs spent most of his time worrying about the competition? Did he waste energy on Apple’s insignificant market share? No! He focused on creating new ideas which led to new products.
Do you believe that promotions come from competition with colleagues? Chances to be promoted come by enriching the organization as a whole, not by competing with individuals. I learned from the school of hard knocks that competition in the workplace has far less benefits than creating, advancing and developing new ideas. Promoting the team and organization is THE best strategy of successful leadership.
There is abundance in the universe. Motivate others to create something out of nothing.
This is “Abundance Leadership”.
Who Is Your Replacement?
A while ago I called X and suggested him to start looking for his replacement. “Aren’t you happy with my performance?” asked X. “Do you plan to fire me?” I heard his worried voice. “Not at all” I replied. “I want to promote you. How can you be promoted you if you have not groomed your replacement?”
Who is YOUR successor? If you don’t have one, you have probably been in the same position for long time. Your chances to get a promotion are better if you have a successor.
How strong should your successor be? The answer is that he/she should be…stronger than you!
It is a tough dilemma. Isn’t it? After all, it’s human nature for us to be afraid that a successful, professional, highly skilled and competent successor will put us in his/her shadow or pass us up altogether. Right?
Wrong!
When we grow into a management position we are no longer individual professionals who are only as good as their technical skills. Leaders are as good as their teams. The stronger their team, the more successful the leaders are.
If we dare to groom a better and stronger successor, it will reflect positively upon us. We will be perceived as confident, successful and brave. A sharp successor will push us out of our comfort zone. He/she will challenge us and reinforce our personal growth.
Years ago, as the Financial Controller of an American listed company, my technical skills were below the benchmark. My adaptive skills compensated for my technical skills. One day, I was interviewing candidates for a position of Accounting Manager. Amar was my first choice. He was a confidant and energetic CPA from a Big Four firm with superior technical, commercial and management skills. I hesitated. This guy was better than me especially considering his youth and work experience.
I hired Amar and my job changed over night. He took over the group accounting. He interacted professionally with our holding company, managed his team well and worked with me on innovative projects. I had a real trailblazer on my team. I never felt threatened even though I knew, as well as anybody else, that Amar was better at the job than me. Our team performance was incredible. In a year we did a corporate split, merger and acquisition. The Chairman and the CEO told me that he felt very comfortable in these endeavors because of the strong finance team. Shortly afterwards, I was promoted to CFO. Amar replaced me as the Financial Controller. A year later, I left the company for an international assignment and Amar replaced me as the CFO. It was a wonderful feeling to leave the legacy of a strong and capable successor. It was not then nor will it be the last time I groom my replacement. It is a proven way to scale the corporate pinnacle.
So who is your successor?
Adaptive Skills Leadership
I few years ago my company’s management visited a nuclear plant. The safety briefing, the radioactivity tests and the security procedures added to the excitement of this visit. A nuclear plant is managed like no other business. A business mistake results in a loss to a company. A safety mistake in a nuclear plant results in a disaster to society. The highlight of the visit was seeing the reactor. I thought about it as a potential atomic bomb. So might the operators who were well trained with various backup procedures aimed at zero failures. I felt relief when we left and thought we all could learn from the excellent leaders of this industry.
Managing a nuclear facility has never been easy. It demands great technical and great people skills. Being a nuclear manager has always meant satisfying a variety of stake-holders, from top-level managers to a board of directors, from internal employees to outside regulators.
Jerry Yelverton is the CEO of Entergy Nuclear in USA. Entergy operates 10 nuclear plants nationwide. It is part of Entergy which has annual revenues of more than $13 billion and approximately 14,700 employees. Yelverton delivered a speech in September 15, 1997 on the topic of Adaptive Skills. Yelverton claimed that to succeed in the demanding business environment of the nuclear power industry, managers must have two kinds of skills. “Off course, they must have top-notch technical skills. That goes without saying. But more and more, we must focus on developing the adaptive skills of our managers.”
The difference between an adaptive challenge and technical challenge is simple. There are problems that are just technical. A car mechanic fixes our car or a doctor gives us antibiotics to cure our sinus infection. Those are technical solutions. But adaptive problems demand another set of skills. Installing a new culture into a company is adaptive. There’s no clear-cut technical solution. It’s a challenge that is going to require people to change their values, their behaviors and their attitudes. They must be led by motivating and inspiring leaders.
Yelverton said that Entergy looked at its nuclear fleet and found out that the top performing plants were all of different technology, design, location and age. “It all comes back to the people operating them. And that all comes back to how well managers can motivate and inspire people”.
The most valuable philosophy in developing managers into leaders with adaptive skills is to move them around. Don’t keep them in the same department. The managers must be tested in different roles. If a manager has just been in operations and that’s all he’s seen, that’s a very narrow focus.
Yelverton says, “The importance of moving people around was reinforced when we interviewed 120 of Entergy’s top leaders. The number-one factor in their success was this: They had a variety of experiences in different functions, business units, companies, and even countries. These experiences were not your typical assignment either. These were high-risk, high visibility assignments. They were multifunctional and focused on solving a crisis or smoldering situation”.
“What benefits did our 120 leaders gain from these experiences? The benefits included: They developed a better understanding of how the whole business operates; they better understood the impact of their decisions on the rest of the organization; they were able to transfer best practices to new areas; they learned how to lead in a variety of situations; plus they developed strong networks inside and outside the company…”
I personally had a career in Finance, Operations and Marketing in 3 different industries in 3 different countries. My corporate journey has included managers who I felt were great and those who I felt were terrible. However, all of them had qualities that helped me grow and added merit to their management styles.
Nowadays, when I encourage people to move, they sometime say, “I don’t want to work for this person”. It doesn’t matter if you like him or her or not. You have to look at what you can learn from him or her. Look at those behaviors you don’t like and say, ‘I’m not going to do some of those things.’ Pick the qualities you like and incorporate them into your own emerging leadership style.
Top leaders don’t wait for the assignment to come to them. They are proactive and throw themselves “out there”. The sooner this happens in their career, the better. Do not wait until your management moves you around. Seize the opportunity and run with it!
Achieve Your Goals
I was driving back home with my family on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. My thoughts wandered to planning the New Year ahead. “I feel restless” I said. “My personal goals are not congruent”. Without hesitation my wife asked “are they in line with your core values”? “My core values are still changing and I am not clear about the deepest ones” I replied. “Just imagine what you want people to say about you after you die” she advised. It was the best advice I have ever gotten about deciding on my core values.
For a few moments I thought about my funeral. What do I want people to say about me? What legacy will I leave behind? Or in Robin Sharma’s words “Who Will Cry When You Die”. Will anyone care how successful I was in my job or it is about the role I played in other people lives? Will anyone care how wealthy I was or how my wealth was used to help others?
Instead of being devastated, these thoughts gave fresh new perspective for goal setting. For example, relationships with people are the highest priority. Business and career goals are second. I am not so worried about business goals as such, because successful people relationships lead to business success.
After aligning goals to core values it’s important to align them to our business or job. Connecting our goals and core values to our business gives new meaning to our job. How far can we go if our personal desires pull us in the opposite direction of our business desires? Not far! If our own values match our business values, we will rock.
Formulating goals has four steps:
- Be specific
It is easier to achieve specific rather than general goals. For example, if you want an MBA, break it into smaller tasks: what university, executive program or standard program, weekends or weekdays and so forth. - Set a time line
Our most important goals are often the less urgent ones. Circumstances make them lower priority. Every day we have urgent things which seem more important. If we do not set up a time line, another year will pass by - Write down your goals
Writing our goals is a powerful way to convert them from thoughts into a reality. Writing our goals calls us to action. - Read your goals every day
Reading goals every day triggers action. This is the art of follow up. The weeks we do not look at our goals because we are too busy are the weeks that we do not progress forward. Try writing your goals on your mobile phone to have easy access to them anytime, anywhere.
What if you do not find time to start new things?
Maria Hughes provides an answer in her book “Life’s 2% Solution – Simple Steps to Achieve Happiness and Balance” (Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2006). President of Collaborative Growth, a consulting firm for corporations and coauthor of Emotional Intelligence in Action, Hughes begins with a simple enough premise: setting aside 2% of personal time, or 30 minutes a day, toward examining an inner passion will lead to “a more richly textured life.” This pursuit, according to Hughes, will connect you with a fundamental core self, insure happiness and stimulate emotional and social intelligence, or EQ, which includes self-regard and empathy.
Can you find 30 minutes a day to pursue your goals?
Set Personal Goals
Danny is the Customer Support Manager of PM Publishing in San Mateo, California. He was surprised to be promoted to this position after the previous manager resigned. Danny was not quite ready for the promotion. He managed 5 service employees in the company’s West Coast office before he was promoted to managing 36 employees in 5 offices nationwide.
Danny has never taken time to plan changes in his life. He was thrown into the situation, thrown into resolving endless escalations from the regional offices. He resolves delivery delays, customer complaints, order changes and other typical service issues; always floating along in whatever direction the river of events takes him. Danny is completely reactive, struggling to manage his team and losing control of his work life. Always the last to leave every day (except of the night shift employees), he gets home after his kids have gone to bed. One night, while crunching on the cold dinner left behind by his wife, he wondered if there was a better way to manage his life.
Danny, like many people, has never set personal goals. For him, things just happen without a plan. It has never bothered him before, but being promoted to leadership caught him unready. He did not realize that living life without setting goals is like driving a car without knowing where to go. Danny recognized that he needs a compass to guide him in setting priorities and balancing his life.
If we want to avoid feeling out of control like Danny, it is important to set personal goals. Goals are a road map to guide us toward a destination, like a lighthouse, compass or GPS.
The end of a year is a good time to setup goals for the following year. Most companies plan the next year at this time. It is good to align your personal goals with your corporate goals so your career path will be congruent with your company path.
When I set up personal goals for the first time, I accomplished less than 10% of my goals by the end of that year. Since then my goal setting has changed dramatically. In the beginning I focused on career and prosperity. Over time, my goals (as well as me) evolved to include goals outside of career and prosperity.
Here are some topics to think about when setting goals:
- Health
If we get sick our set of priorities changes immediately. If we face a life threatening illness, survival becomes top priority. Prevention is important.
Sample goals for health can be:
- Exercise 3 times a week for 45 minutes
- Quit smoking by dropping from one pack per day to 10 cigarettes by March, 5 cigarettes by June, 2 cigarettes by September and none by December. - Relationships
As social creatures, we naturally want to improve our relationships with our loved ones. Our life styles occasionally stand in our way. Setting relationship goals helps to determine the changes we are looking for in our relationships.
Some ideas:
- Get involved with kids school.
- Surprise spouse with a romantic dinner at least every 3 months
- Volunteer for favorite charity 3 times a year - Leisure
Leaders work hard and play hard. We must take time off to re-charge.
We can set goals like:
- Play tennis every Sunday
- Take guitar lessons every Monday night - Prosperity
Everyone would like to achieve financial freedom in one point of time (and better sooner than later). If we don’t save for retirement we can never afford to retire. If we won’t plan we won’t save. We can set goals as:
- Allocate 20% of monthly salary to a saving account
- Invest in rental property - Career
We spend half of our waking time at work. We definitely want to be accomplished and rewarded. This does not happen by chance. Successful career paths are planned. Where are we heading? What do we do to get there? Such goals can be:
- Start an MBA and complete in 2 years over the weekends
- Attend a tax course to reach a tax advisor certificate
- Restructure department(s) to prepare for business expansion - Self-Actualization
What do you feel is your true calling? This is not always easy to find this answer, but one can make small movements toward it. It’s helpful to spend time to gain clarity on the “larger questions” in your life. Some goal setting ideas include:
- Define a purpose or framework within which you pursue all your activities
- Define core values that drive you
What in the world does goal setting have to do with leadership?
Leaders must lead themselves first in order to lead others. Setting goals, defining vision and values develops the inner strength that leaders require. Titles, nominations, rankings are superficial. True leadership comes from within.
Find out next week a foolproof plan to achieve most (if not all) all of your personal goals. Before then, take some time to write down 2 personal goals for each of the 6 items above. Stay tuned for the next post.
Happy New Year
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