Alliance for Leadership Acceleration

Setting Goals Effectively
The way in which you set a goal strongly affects the effectiveness. The following broad guidelines apply to setting effective goals:

• Be Positive: express your goals positively: 'Execute this technique well' is a much better goal than 'don't make this stupid mistake'.
  
• Be Precise: if you set a precise goal, putting in dates, times and amounts so that achievement can be measured, then you know the exact goal to be achieved, and can take complete satisfaction from having completely achieved it. 
• Set Priorities: where you have several goals, give each a priority. This helps you to avoid feeling overwhelmed by too many goals, and helps to direct your attention to the most important ones. 
• Write Goals Down to avoid confusion and give them more force. 
• Keep Daily Operational Goals Small: Keep the goals you are working towards immediately, small and achievable. If a goal is too large, then it can seem that you are not making progress towards it. Keeping operational goals small and incremental gives more opportunities for reward. Today's goals should be derived from larger goals.

Important!  You should note a number of general principles about goal setting:

1. Set Performance, Not Outcome Goals
2. Set Specific, Measurable Goals
3. Set Goals at the Right Level
4. Think Through Your Goals
   

It was four years ago when I decided to take a big leap myself when I created the Alliance for Leadership Acceleration. I created ALA in order to fill a very large gap in leadership development for mid-level managers and high-potentials with our LEAP Leadership Acceleration Program that I have been running in Washington State since 2002. I'm thrilled on so many levels to be expanding the program:

1. LEAP University: the benefits and metrics are clear. LEAP gets results. As word gets out we're finding more and more larger organizations that are bringing LEAP in-house through our LEAP University program. We're happy to name Pokémon and MacDonald Miller to this list in 2015.

2. LEAP Certified Coaches: we now have 10 certified coaching professionals who are delivering LEAP in the Northwest--this is up from two just three years ago. They are collaborating on marketing and co-leading LEAP cohorts--self-employment doesn't need to be lonely anymore! It's inspiring to be part of such a talented group of people.

3. LEAP Cohorts: we are running more LEAP cohorts than ever and the momentum and inbound requests are building. Executive sponsors continue to send additional employees through the program, citing succession planning, decision making, team productivity and performance, and overall improved strategy execution as top reasons for sponsoring employees for LEAP. We've got companies of all sizes and from all sectors that want to invest to develop their talent into the leaders they need.

2016 Is a Leap Year.
Can you recall where you were with your business four years ago? 
How far have you come to achieving your goals?
Where do you plan to be four years from now?

Need some tips on setting goals effectively?
Check out our article excerpt from LEAP - Goal Setting for Higher Performance