10 Personal Development Goals Every Aspiring Leader Should Pursue

by Srikant Chellappa Sep 1,2024
Engagedly
PODCAST

The People Strategy Leaders Podcast

with Srikant Chellappa, CEO

Leadership is not an inherent trait; it evolves through experience and time. Genuine leaders consistently seek opportunities for growth, recognizing that there’s always room for improvement. Setting and actively pursuing goals is a crucial aspect of leadership, but these goals should specifically target areas of weakness, amplify strengths, and refine leadership skills.

Prioritizing personal development is crucial for every individual, with a particular emphasis on leaders. Leaders play a pivotal role in providing guidance and establishing benchmarks for individual growth. To delve into the significance of personal development goals for leaders, let’s explore their importance further.

More than the title, it is the skills of an individual that are pivotal. Leaders should help others grow in their respective fields and understand one’s competency level. Besides the title or the position, the behavioral approach includes leadership traits that drive high employee engagement.

The behavior and accomplishment of a person contribute towards earning the title. There is no power related to the title, rather, the number of people a leader could empower and inspire makes one a successful leader. 

Leadership is considered learned behavior, and one can develop it over time. A person will not suddenly become a leader in a group or team. It is the ability to influence others in a group without trying to control them.

With development goals, leaders know how to create an environment of respect and a comfortable space for everyone on the team. They share their vision and objective and inspire passion on how to collaborate as a team and get the best results. These are some tactics that will help an individual and the team grow.

Focus on 10 important development goals 

Although the focus area may vary from leader to leader, here are ten common personal development goals for leaders that every leader should have.

1. Become a Good Mentor

Among the personal development goals for leaders, try to become a good mentor, as the team depends on the leader for guidance. Mentorship should be a priority and set goals to help the team grow and everyone will know their roles better.

Hear out every individual on your team consider their opinion and try to understand their perspectives. It helps in working together team building, and achieving goals. Give feedback and guidance for the growth of team members on the right track.

To further enhance leadership development, setting professional development goals for work can greatly impact both personal and team growth. When focusing on personal development, invest time, listen to each of them, and help overcome new challenges. 

2. Build Better Connection With Peers

Leaders should try to establish good connections with every individual in a team. The focus should be on cooperation and effective collaboration, no matter what the situation is. Interpersonal connections can be supportive to overcome difficult phases. Besides, encourage your team to collaborate and not work in silos. This will help them understand the value of team building.

Also read: The Importance Of Peer Feedback At Workplace

3. Practice Active Listening

A leader’s listening skills matter. Don’t just hear them passively, practice active listening. Try to find what ideas set every individual apart. People appreciate it when you hear them out. This will help you brainstorm new ideas. Everyone should get a chance to speak.

Use signs to show that you are listening actively. It helps in an excellent exchange of ideas among team members that help get productive and innovative results. Additionally, your employees feel valued and important when they are listened to, in turn, it improves employee engagement.

4. Ability to make SMART decisions 

Leaders should be prompt enough to make decisions and focus on the decision-making procedure. It would help a team start with projects sooner, without finding it difficult to meet deadlines.

Involve team members in every decision-making process and it would open up options for final decisions. Try to set examples about setting personal development goals for your team members. Your approach to achieving the goals should inspire them to become one like you. 

Also read: How To Use SMART Goals For Employee Engagement?

A leader should be able to make smart decisions in the face of hardship and it is important to build resilience. It is not about being powerless but about the quality of remaining flexible and the ability to adapt easily, no matter what the condition is.

It is important to pull your team up for future endeavors and teach them how to overcome failures. Help your team prepare for inevitable hardships and try to go ahead with a positive mindset.    

5. Be confident in what you do 

Leaders should be confident, and this helps earn respect. Your confidence should encourage others. Confidence comes from within and one should take a moment to understand how they have achieved it. Try to exhibit the skills at work and help others develop them under your guidance. The better you can encourage and inspire others, the more confident you will feel. Here, you can focus on self-development goals for better results. 

6. Efficient time management skills

It is an essential goal of a leader that helps to handle multiple projects. It requires meeting deadlines and knowing how to make the most use of available time. Being a leader, if you can complete your tasks on time, your team is likely to follow the same. Prioritize meeting deadlines by use of suitable time management skills and this is what research has to state about time management goals.   

The vital skills are:

  • Understanding that time is limited and one should be realistic to make effective use of available time
  • Organize daily tasks and goals practically
  • Monitor correct use of time for projects and quick response for adapting to changes in a given time 

7. Design Better Processes And Strategies

Try to find new strategies for your team to work with less effort and time, but not compromise on the quality. As a leader, one should plan for effective processes within the team to ensure maximum business profitability.

Try to identify the forte of each member of a team and delegate tasks according to skills so that you can complete projects on time. When focusing on personal development goals for leaders, one should come up with efficient strategies and deploy them for suitable results.   

8. Adaptability

A leader should be adaptable to change depending on the situation they are put in. As a leader, a person should know how to adapt to change quickly and help the team to adjust accordingly. This is another important skill where a leader requires strength and confidence to adapt and help them do the same confidently and quickly. 

It is one of the essential self-development goals of an individual to work on and help an individual serve better as a leader. The leader would show his supervising style, and create networks with individual leaders such that it contributes to the self-development growth process.

Therefore, leader self-development can be considered as a cost-effective method for an organization to develop their leaders and result in a competitive edge. It helps organizations easily survive amidst the growing competitive nature of the market. 

9. Focus on Self-Discipline 

A self-disciplined person can make better decisions at work. It would help if you had a better analysis of what is good for your business rather than looking for only personal gain. Try to be quick in choosing the possible outcomes and choose the favorable one.

An unbiased leader can show integrity in work and help team members focus on self-discipline. If leaders can develop self-discipline, it will help them make unbiased decisions in a controlled way. In this, the leader should be aware of the decisions, and their repercussions on the actions and the final decision taken.

10. Be more responsible 

Even when you make decisions in a hurry, dare to accept the consequences quickly and learn from them. You should accept your responsibilities as a leader and be ready to work on solutions for unexpected problems that crop up in the workplace. Correct assessment and successful planning can help leaders get desired results and decide for the good of an organization.

In personal development goals for leaders, both short-term and long-term goals can be beneficial to stay focused on day-to-day and future goals. Try to choose goals that help develop personal skills and a leader can become an example for his or her team.

Goal Setting Module

Remember these four tips to achieve your goals

One doesn’t become a leader overnight. It takes hard work, commitment, setting goals, and achieving goals to reach the top. Evaluation of goals and how well one can achieve them helps understand how much effort one needs to put in. Here are some characteristic aspects that will always boost your abilities to achieve your goals better and faster.

1. Acquiring better skills 

If you do not acquire the skills required for a leader, you should not worry. Practice can make one perfect and nurture skills for developmental growth. Try to work on career and unique leadership skills that would help one improve their mindset in the right direction. Together, all these will help you become a confident and strong person to lead a team on the right path.    

Also read: Getting Started With Real-Time Performance Management

2. Develop commitment and meet challenges 

In the personal development goals for leaders, finding new challenges will make one’s job fulfilling and interesting. This gives scope to develop commitment in an individual and meet them. So, work on abilities to supervise better and get improved results.

Commitment towards goals would reflect an individual’s personality and approach to taking up new challenges and how smoothly you can solve them. This is a great way to improve oneself continuously for a better future. 

3. Working on personal relationships 

Team unity can become strong when working in a mature working environment and the team can be productive when there is a personal element in the relationship. Leaders should nourish the team and engage in honest communication among team members for better results.

It is of immense importance to earn the trust of every member and strengthen the relationship. For this, welcome ideas and cultural diversity and try to be a good listener. This is how leaders get a scope to learn from everyone in a group and can club together innovative ideas.

4. Develop a growth mindset and be positive 

Be positive and try to have a progressive mindset as it would help handle things better. If an individual has a growth mindset, he or she is more likely to collaborate and communicate with others, strive for growth, and help others. They are always looking for potential learning opportunities and finding innovative ways to do things.

The personal development goals examples will help understand how to achieve goals and how it helps in the personal development of a leader. Try to think of leadership as behavior that others can exhibit and try to follow them and contribute effectively to the growth of an organization. 

Things to remember:

  • Leaders should influence and not control 
  • Leaders should not go by title as the focus should be on the behavioral approach
  • Everyone can become a leader. The only difference is the way to nurture and practice them for the best 
  • If a leader has followers, it is a positive sign of achievement 
Also read: 5 Tips To Reduce Employee Turnover

Conclusion

In cultivating personal development goals for leaders, it’s essential to choose skills that distinguish them from their peers. Effective leaders possess the ability to think strategically and act with purpose, allowing them to perceive beyond conventional boundaries and address challenges proactively.

A distinctive leadership approach contributes significantly to positive growth, emphasizing the importance of broad perspectives. Determination and clarity in leaders’ objectives facilitate seamless collaboration within the organization and the team, ensuring a collective effort toward achieving desired results with unwavering dedication.

Talent Management Software

Author
Srikant Chellappa
CEO & Co-Founder of Engagedly

Srikant Chellappa is the Co-Founder and CEO at Engagedly and is a passionate entrepreneur and people leader. He is an author, producer/director of 6 feature films, a music album with his band Manchester Underground, and is the host of The People Strategy Leaders Podcast. He is currently working on his next book, Ikigai at the Workplace, which is slated for release in the fall of 2024.

Newsletter

Privacy Preference Center