WHAT GOALS ARE YOU SETTING TO HELP YOU BE A BETTER LEADER IN 2024?
Maybe you are sitting on a beach somewhere, scanning the horizon lazily through your sunnies; or relaxing on the deck at your holiday house enjoying the birdsong and the aroma of the eucalypts below you. Perhaps you have been awakened in the early hours by a persistent mosquito whose high-pitched attack cry has penetrated your slumbers in your Airbnb stay . Or you are just at home, distracted momentarily from your immersion in the book that has been on top of your pile for months.
Wherever you are, out of the blue, this thought comes, slinking up to consciousness unbidden: What am I going to do differently this year?
Being the conscientious type you are, you do not push the thought away. You know that self-reflection on your professional practice as a school leader is a good thing. You also know how rarely the intensity of your working days permits time for anything much other than what is happening in the present. So, you follow the thought while there is time to do so.
What emerges?
Setting personal and professional goals at the beginning of a new year is a sensible and worthwhile thing to do, though unlike Rachel Wells (in 6 Steps To Set New Year’s Resolutions For 2024 Like A Leader, in Forbes, 31 Dec 23). I am one not much in favour of styling your professional goals as New Year’s resolutions. New Year’s resolutions tend to be a bit twee, and traditionally, if not culturally, they are almost always shallow, difficult to sustain and thus doomed not to endure.
Even Wells herself concedes that if your goal is to climb the ladder and reach the pinnacle of your professional aspirations in 2024, you should know that merely wistfully listing out your New Year's resolutions is not sufficient. Many goals are created but lie dormant, waiting to be checked off twelve months later, because life happens, circumstances derail us, work gets busier, and we wind up caught up in it all so that we lose motivation to keep going, she writes.
Regardless of your specific goals, whether they be undertaking a professional development course, improving your team leadership skills, reading and completing a new book, or landing a promotion, how can you set goals this year that you actually have some chance of achieving, and more importantly, that actually make a difference in your professional leadership journey, so that you end the year in a better position than where you started?
According to Wells, who coaches millennials for leadership roles, personal and professional goals which are solid and encourage you to keep striving and on track are shaped by a framework known as SMART. SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
She suggests you shape your goals to meet these five criteria:
1. Make your goals for this year Specific
Wells encourages you to define clearly the why (always the why first – that is, identify the motivation behind your having thought up and set this goal); then the who, what, where, when and how of your goal. Using vague language such as, "I want to land a promotion," offers nothing tangible or motivating for you to work towards, Wells explains. Get specific about your why (eg, so that you can continue your own professional growth towards fulfilling your career passion; or become responsible for your own team and its growth and development; or more practically, to have more financial security for yourself and your family). Then, specify who is involved (you, obviously, and then others whose input may assist you towards achieving your goal, starting with having a conversation with your immediate line manager and then with others whose judgment and professional advice you value and trust, including your Principal). You need honestly and realistically to assess and know your own particular talents, and then also to know what kind of role you are seeking: do you want promotion to Assistant Head or Head of your teaching department; or are you seeking a more senior role that enables you to draw on your experience in student well-being and welfare? You need to work out where you will seek your promotion – in your present school, or in another organisation). Then, importantly, you need to assess how – what will help to drive you towards achieving your leadership goal. Finally, by when would you ideally like to achieve your goal?
2. Ensure your goals are Measurable
How are you going to track your progress towards your goals and measure your success? Wells indicates that when you set in place quantifiable metrics for your goals, you will not only know when you have attained your overall objective. Setting quantifiable goals is also a way of scaffolding the process you will undertake to achieve them, enabling you to feel in control, instead of overwhelmed by your goal, by breaking the process of achieving it down into bitesize steps. You probably do this with your students, especially your younger students, when you ask them to undertake a substantial project or piece of work. In other words, dimension the task into realistic, achievable segments, and set a date by which you hope to have completed each segment.
Wells offers this example, if your goal is to improve your performance on your KPIs by mid-year, you could use the reports from your monthly one-on-one meetings with your line manager as measurement indicators, and could aim for a "good" rating by February, a "very good" rating by April, and an "excellent" rating by June. While mid-level school leaders may be less likely to have externally-set KPIs to measure their performance against, you can always set your own ‘on-the-way’ targets to support and chart your onward progress.
3. Ensure that your goals are Achievable
Be realistic about what you are asking of yourself. As Wells observes, sometimes we get ahead of ourselves and become so optimistic and excited about the possibilities of the new year that we set goals that are unrealistic and we end up discouraging ourselves in the long run. Your professional goals should be both challenging and realistic, Wells advocates — challenging enough to push you outside your comfort zone to be remarkably different from what you normally do, but not so challenging that it overwhelms you or is totally beyond your capability.
It might also be the case that the goal is within your capabilities but the timeframe you have set is not realistic, or you do not currently possess sufficient resources, Wells acknowledges, continuing, If this is true for you, adjust the parameters accordingly. So, instead of saying, "I want to complete a 300-hour course in two weeks," pace yourself to achieve the completion of one module every two weeks, and complete the entire course in six months to accommodate your work schedule, she suggests.
4. Make sure your goals are personally Relevant
How relevant are your goals to your overall career vision and professional motivations? Wells asks. There's no use in setting a goal if it's random and not in line with where you desire to be five or 10 years from now, she goes on, adding, goals should be ones that you personally seek and are meaningful to your own life, not ones that others have set for you. If you don't want it, or want it enough, you won't be motivated or driven to do it. In other words, don’t just set goals for the sake of it; set goals that are real for you and that will encourage you to achieve in authentic, self-fulfilling ways.
5. Create goals that are Time-Bound
Without a time-frame for achieving your goals, Wells cautions, you leave the door open to procrastination. This can even result in those to whom you are responsible not taking you seriously because your goals appear too vague, she adds, offering the following examples: Instead of saying, "My goal is to lead more efficient meetings," you could say, "My goal is for all the team meetings I lead to last no longer than 30 minutes, including generating a list of follow-up actions." Or instead of, "I want to land a promotion to sales director," how about try rephrasing it to, "My goal is to land a promotion to sales director by January 2025."
You can see what she means. Frame your goals within a time frame, and as the SMART framework suggests, being specific is the first step in setting useful, relevant, appropriate, achievable goals.
As she concludes her advice on goal-setting, Wells suggests you be specific and definite in stating what you intend. Goals are, after all, statements of intent, not flimsy wishes or wispy wants. Saying what you want or desire leaves the impression on your mind that it will forever be a want, something to aim for in the distant future, Wells asserts, urging you to Stop saying "I wish" or "I want," and replace these with more positive phrases such as "I am going to," or "My goal is to" or "I will." ?
Be resolved and confident as you set out on your professional pathway in 2024, and be SMART about the way you set your goals.
Oh, and good luck with it all!