The 3 Goal-Setting Techniques You Need to Become an Authentic Leader (with 2 You’re Probably Ignoring)

What’s the difference between a leader and an authentic leader??

One of the key differences comes down to goal setting.

Leaders think of KPIs. Authentic leaders know that KPIs are important but also explore beyond that.?

Here are the 3 ways to set goals (and the 2 that make all the difference)

1. Results-focused goal setting

This is the most common form of goal setting and the one you probably use the most.?

First you think about what results you want to achieve.

Then, you think of a timeline of when you want those results by.?

Once you’ve got your goal and a timeline in place, you reverse engineer the tasks you feel you need to do to get there and create a to-do list to tackle each day, week, and month.?

Think of a sales person.?

They create a quarterly target for how much revenue they want to generate.?

Then, they think about how many products they’d need to sell and to how many clients.?

Then, they identify how many people they’d need to do outreach to to increase the chances of converting sales.

No one knows if the goal will actually be met, but what’s great about this kind of goal setting is that it creates a bit more of certainty because you are taking action on the things that are most likely to help you get the results, and you can have confidence that you’ll be in the ballpark of the results you want by the end of the timeline (assuming you stick to it).?

But what if you don’t feel motivated by the tasks to reach the result?

What if you’ve brought results before but your happiness was short-lived???

What if you don’t know what you want??

Or, what if you think you know what you want…but something inside you isn’t completely sure??

Here are 2 more kinds of goal setting that address when you feel a little lost or out of alignment with your goals - and ones that authentic leaders incorporate into their vision.?

2. Intention-focused goal setting?

Intention-focused goal setting is where you identify an area of growth you’d like to achieve, and be conscious of this desire on a regular basis to foster awareness of opportunities.

For example, let’s say you want to be a better leader at work. And at this stage, you have some clues as to what you could improve, like your communication skills.?

But although you want to improve your communication skills, you may not have a clear understanding of what to implement to improve your communication, and it’s hard to measure results when you’re also not clear on what evidence you will have that shows you are a better communicator.?

In this case, you can simply start by setting a daily intention to “be a good communicator”.?

The benefit of setting an intention is that it fosters awareness of the opportunities and kinds of tasks that you can do to be better at communication.?

Maybe you start to notice that you don’t reply to messages timely. Maybe you notice that people only respond to one of your few points. Maybe you observe your tone and phrasing and start to reflect on what can be better.?

Over the course of time, setting an intention will bring awareness to what’s possible, and will help you start to shift your actions in the direction you want to go.?

3. Feelings-focused

My favorite book on goal setting is “The Desire Map” by Danielle Laporte where she talks about “goals with soul”.

The story starts with her sharing her frustration for setting New Year’s resolutions (after years of setting goals and falling off the bandwagon) and she discovered a way to change her approach that felt more in alignment with her core desires.

In a nutshell, you can create feelings-focused goals by first identifying how you want to feel. For example, maybe instead of saying “I want more money”, you say “I want to feel abundant”. Or instead of saying “I want to lose 10 pounds”, you say “I want to feel light and flexible in my body.”?

When you start with your core desires - how you want to feel - you will start to notice tasks that will help you feel that way and you can focus on bringing more of that into your life.

In Danielle’s case, she realized she wanted to feel “connected” so she started throwing dinner parties at her home on a regular basis. She also wanted to feel good movement in her body so she opted to go on walks in nature. These tasks she implemented were completely different from ones she used to think of, like traveling more or hitting the gym. And engaging with the tasks alone gave her instant gratification.

How is it that you want to feel??

Here’s why it’s important to use a mix of each kind of goal setting (and not just sticking to one)

The key observation about these 3 kinds of goal setting that I want to point out to you is that the 1st one is a way to set extrinsic goals, whereas the 2nd and 3rd ways address intrinsic motivation.?

I’m by no means saying that you shouldn’t do results-focused goal setting in favor of intention-focused or feelings-focused goal setting.?

But if you are only doing results-focused goal setting, you may find it really hard to stick to your plan without understanding your intention behind it or what the result is going to bring to you in terms of inner delight.?

At the same time, if you are a leader who needs to show measurable results in your organization, you wouldn’t want to focus only on intentions and feelings, because at some point you do need to be able to bring tangible results.?

If you use all three, you’ll tackle an approach that uses your mind + heart + body.

True alignment - and authentic leadership - happens when you use both extrinsic and intrinsic goal setting.?

I designed a revolutionary wellness approach to developing authentic leaders, with The Sento Mindset. Come learn more about this philosophy, here: www.katheryngronauer.com ?

#authenticleadership #authenticleader #executivecoaching #leadershipcoaching #leadershipskills??#goalsetting