Leadership In Action – 3 Keys to Effective Goal Achievement

snow covered road between trees during daytime

From a recent review of several hundred leaders, who received feedback from The Leadership BluePrint™, interesting patterns have emerged, most notably in the area of Goals. In terms of impact, Goals is the factor typically needing the most improvement. In terms of leadership mindsetting methods, Goal Facilitation was the least effective skill. So, as we start a new year, it seems like Goals is a good place to begin.


In this blog, we focus on the importance of clear, shared goals. In our curriculum, we say, “No Goal, No Energy.” Clear, accepted goals allow your team members to engage their discretionary energy toward the task at hand, and achieve high levels of effectiveness. There are three key outcomes that provide a strong indication that goals are clear and accepted.


When your team members have a clear and vivid picture of what success looks like, they can sharpen the image and adjust until they accomplish the result. This taps into our teleological (goal-focused) nature, which, like autopilot, has your team members learning from past mistakes and adjusting to be more successful in the next attempt.

Grit enables your team members to recover from past mistakes with a renewed level of energy for the next time.


These clear and accepted goals create forethought in your team members. Forethought is the ability to “see” what comes next. It is constant mental planning about what happens next to accomplish the overall goal. These team members make things happen.

Proactive enables team members to look two or three steps ahead in order to stride easily toward goal completion.


When you combined Grit and Proactive together, you get the third outcome: Innovation.  When your team members have that internal drive to learn from mistakes, and keep moving toward the goals, along with the planning two or three steps ahead, they start to question assumptions on the best way to achieve the desired results. This challenging of assumptions, within the context of wanting to achieve the goals, creates opportunities for innovation.

Innovation enables the team members to challenge assumptions and achieve the goal more effectively.


So, if your team is demonstrating Grit, Proactive behavior and Innovation, then it’s likely you have them aligned around clear and accepted goals. If not, stay tuned for following blogs that will help you Connect the Dots and create clear and accepted goals for you and your team.