Few people are actually born to leadership. Most people have to learn how to become good leaders. One important aspect of good leadership is knowing what you are trying to lead others to. This involves careful consideration beforehand.
Begin with the End in Mind
Having a plan means that you know what the end result should look like. This can apply to your work environment, the culture, or what you expect from your employees. By having clear idea of what you want from your employees and what you want from yourself, you put yourself in a better position to plan how to meet your goals.
Setting Goals
In addition to company-wide goals, each leader of a team should have specific goals for their team that complement the company’s goals. These goals can inform how you make policy and what kind of team culture you foster. If you have ever been involved in meetings or team building exercises that have seemed to be fun but ultimately pointless or a waste of time, you can understand the need to have clear goals to strive for. Then activities such as meetings, exercises, or other activities assume a greater importance.
Determining Values
Setting goals for yourself, your team, and in some cases your company are important aspects of developing a plan for your leadership. However, on another level, these goals are actually not as big picture as you can get. To really understand how you can lead others, you must account for your own values and the company’s values as well. When you have a good grasp on what is important to you, this can clarify when to stand your ground and when to relent when you disagree with others, which is a position you will find yourself in often as a leader.
A Mission Statement
Imagine you are somehow able to listen in at your funeral. What will everyone say about you? What would you like to be said about you? Now that you have taken the time to identify some specific goals and some core values, the next step is to write out a mission statement. Think of the mission statement as a kind of personal constitution. Just as the US government uses the US Constitution as a guide toward decision making, this mission statement can help to serve as your guide. This can be your own personal mission statement, but it is also helpful to work out a mission statement with your team. However, the most important step in making these mission statements is that you have identified what you truly value and understand why you have set the goals that you have set, both for your team and for yourself.
This post is from February’s topic on Being a Likeable Boss, which is also a course on our Executive Mini-MBA program online from Harvard Square.
Greetings!!! Our Attention Management topic on 20th August was a great active learning experience. Our Founder Mr Dan, Mr. Raj Gupta and Members of Leaders Excellence,including me, actively interacted . The question I had raised was How many of us have fear of the unknown and how many of us have fear of Death.
I observed one thing and that is we were responding about this topic from a rational approach rather than a balance of thought and emotion. I am not being critical. We are at work most of time and our Mind is conditioned. But when we are back home,we need to change this. So this brings me to say that what we need is ‘to switch Roles”. One Role at Office, one Role in our home or any social function. This makes great communications and we are happy. Kind regards. Florence MacDonald