5 Unexpected Leadership Goals For Top Executives

Are you a natural born leader?

Research shows that only 10% of people are natural-born leaders. That statistic doesn’t seem very encouraging to leaders who are in high positions and running companies but may not feel like they are a natural-born leader. 

There is good news, however!

Leadership is a trait that can always be learned and developed. 

Over time, leaders can build, grow, and refine their leadership skills because there is always more to learn! One way to grow your leadership skills is to set goals around your leadership development!

As you seek to expand your business, inspire your workforce, and build your brand, setting the right leadership goals will help you get there. In this article, we're sharing 5 of the top objectives to keep in mind as you develop into the leader you’ve always wanted to be.

1. Develop Self-Discipline

Before anyone can lead a workforce, they must first be equipped to lead themselves. Effective leadership requires deep stores of self-discipline.

As you learn to take responsibility for your work, actions, behaviors and outcomes, you'll inspire others around you to follow suit. At the same time, you'll discover how to make decisions in a sound and logical manner, understanding the potential results of every option.

Especially in a busy workplace, it's easy to make rash, impulsive moves to keep pace with demands and expectations. However, a disciplined leader knows how to maintain an environment of control, leading to more favorable outcomes. 

2. Hone-In Your Active Listening Skills

In today's Digital Age, there are many platforms at your fingertips, all begging you to post your thoughts and share them with the world.

Because of the opportunity for everyone to share, over time, we've devalued listening and overemphasized shouting -- trying to get our voice heard above the rest. Yet, an excellent leader understands that active listening is one of the most important skills to possess.

Why?

Being an active listener helps you understand your team's challenges, frustrations, pain points, and delights. When you're actively engaged in their feedback and using it to drive change, you're cultivating an environment of respect and appreciation. You can then use these insights to reward your workers, address ongoing issues, and alleviate workplace stressors.

In turn, these employees are more likely to remain loyal to the company and maintain their performance levels. In fact, in one survey, 65% of employees said they would work harder if their employer would appreciate their efforts more.

3. Embrace the Risk of Failure

Every fledgling leader has heard the story about Thomas Edison's thousands of unsuccessful attempts to invent the lightbulb. It's a repeated story, and for good reason: it speaks to the importance of not giving up. 

A great leader might strive daily to achieve perfection. Yet, they ultimately realize that the pursuit is out of reach. Knowing this, they expect and anticipate failures before they occur and learn to embrace the risk of any learning and growth.

What sets a good leader apart is that they refuse to get stuck or sidetracked by their defeats. Instead, they simply factor them into the equation and keep pressing onward.

It is common for new leaders to feel tempted to blame others for their missteps. Or, they might act out in anger. Some might even try to hide the mistake and avoid facing the consequences.

With time, they'll learn to use these losses as learning opportunities. They'll examine every one closely to uncover how they can improve in the future, turning any setback into a setup for success.

4. Identify and Inspire Leadership in Others

An effective leader never works in a silo. Rather, they require a strong, capable, and robust team around them to support and complement their efforts. They know that if a business relies only on themselves, the business is not a good business!

After all, a leader's primary role is to mentor and direct others. They're always looking a few steps ahead, anticipating what's to come. As such, one of the most important leadership strategies is to find and inspire others to fill their shoes one day.

These leaders know that ultimately, they need to become redundant. Pushing their own ego aside, they strive to find others to replace them when the time comes.

You could be the most awe-inspiring, revered leader in the world. Yet, if there's no one in the chain of command who can fulfill your role when you step away from it, you could set your company up for devastation in the future. This is why it is so important for leaders to identify and inspire others to want to lead and follow in their footsteps.

5. Cultivate Resilience

Great leaders understand how to recover quickly from any sort of difficulty that comes their way. They remain flexible and agile, able to quickly adapt and overcome in the face of great change.

This way, when hardships come (as they inevitably will), they won't threaten to usurp their efforts or undermine their organizations. 

When faced with an unexpected difficulty, some people will simply break and never recover. While this can be detrimental enough in one's own personal life, it can totally destroy an organization. Grit and resilience are key character traits for a leader to develop. 

A leader must understand how to navigate around any sort of roadblock, whether it's financial, operational, departmental, or any other type. They keep their eyes on the long-term end goal and remain unphased by short-term collapses. They know they and their team can overcome because they are driven to find solutions rather than focusing on the problem.

Strive to Achieve These Leadership Goals

Successful people-leaders are rarely born overnight. However, the reality is that anyone can take the time to develop themselves and become a great leader one day! 

Even if you have been in a leadership position for quite some time but you know you are lacking in leadership skills, you can use these five leadership goals as excellent starting points, setting the stage for a lifetime of continued learning.

Are you wanting to take the first step towards better developing yourself and the other leaders in your organization? We would love to have you trial our leadership membership where we offer resources, trainings, and expert support to equip you to become a better leader for your people! For more information, click here.