The One Personal Goal YOu Need as a Leader

The One Personal Goal You Need for 2011
By Sean Silverthorne | January 3, 2011

Goals. We all make them to start the new year. And forget them by Valentine’s Day.

So here’s your excuse to stop working on your Personal Goals for 2011 right this moment. The reason: They might make you a less effective leader.

The fact of the matter is that personal goals can come at the expense of something more important: making others around you better by making them your priority. That’s the word from Harvard Business School professors Robin Ely and Frances Frei, and Anne Morriss of Concire Leadership Institute.

“That doesn’t mean leaders are selfless. They have personal goals — to build status, a professional identity, and a retirement plan, among other things,” the authors write in the current Harvard Business Review. “But the narrow pursuit of those goals can lead to self-protection and self-promotion, neither of which fosters other people’s success.”

This may be one of the hardest things you will do as a leader. After all, self-protection is the ultimate brain hard-wire. So to downplay our own needs can feel dangerous, according to Ely, Frei and Morriss in their article, Stop Holding Yourself Back.

“But all breakthrough leaders find ways to tame their security impulses. Most are amazed by the energy and meaning they discover when they no longer define themselves by their personal needs and fears.”

OK, so you should have at least one personal goal this year: Make others better. Your commitment should be to make another person, or your entire team, better in some way. At problem solving, or prioritizing, or communicating with customers. Then get them the resources they need to get to work.

MY THOUGHTS

last year, one of my favorite leaders, someone i have worked for and idolized for years, went through some pretty gruelling leadership test. i had the privelege of going through the test with him. when the real crunch time came, he said something i will never forget - "i have nothing to prove to this world". wasn't that a confirmation that he didn't have personal goals? no personal agenda? there was no need for him to work (except probably to keep himself busy???) yet he was there. going through the ordeal. drinking it all in. fighting his way through in the most humbling way. not for himself. but for his personal mission of making others better. i felt he made me better. i certainly hope so.