Fostering goals that inspire

Photo by sydney Rae on Unsplash

“Go out and do something. It isn’t your room that’s a prison, it’s yourself.” Sylvia Plath 

As a leader, we constantly find ourselves in positions where we are fostering goals that inspire -- helping people get out of their own way. We notice that, oftentimes, team members will think that it is something outside of themselves that is “stopping” them from doing whatever it is they want to achieve. However, what I have noticed in my leadership development practice is that professionals, particularly aspiring leaders, will underestimate what they can do. They’re afraid to set goals too high because they feel like they won’t make the goal, so they set uninspiring goals to not let themselves down. On the contrary, high goals are what is needed. 

Sometimes aspiring leaders will simply not even bother to set goals or resolutions (aspirational or otherwise) because of their fear of failure. They couch their fear as “I’m not going to set an authentic goal because I’ll break it anyway.” Basically, realizing it or not, what they are doing is being fearful. They are also setting themselves up for failure because they do not have goals.  

What we need to do, as leaders, therefore, is to bring the best out of our aspiring leaders by fostering an understanding that the goal outcome is not the point, but instead the point is the process. When aspiring leaders learn the importance of the process over the goals, they’ll outgrow workplaces that don’t serve them. For example, at my client’s workplace, despite them making a case for their leadership, their director, supervisor, or chairperson, will nonetheless, have low expectations of them; therefore, low-performance goals and lower salary for my client. Instead of internalizing these assumptions, my client uses their chairperson’s goal as a baseline. Since they have higher expectations for themselves, my client will take action to positively impact workplace performance (which, by the way, helps them in their career and life overall). They take action steps such as implementing professional books, networking, etc. Ultimately, in their current workplace assignment, my client over-performs, get bored, then leaves the organization for an offer where they are well compensated for their knowledge. This cycle negatively impacts organizational retention.  

So, you may ask, “Dr. Jamay, as leaders how do we foster inspirational goals in our aspiring leader and our team members overall?” The answer is we need to foster this in ourselves! Share our journey, lead by example and show what it’s like to be our own best mentor. Although we will have mentors and coaches, we are our best mentor and coach. Show how the journey is more important than the outcome; sometimes, albeit, difficult because of organizational goals. As long as you’re in congruence with organizational goals, you will make the goals, so it’s important to focus on the journey. Then once the goal is made, you and your team won’t be surprised. 

As leaders, we know that there will be times when someone or society has low expectations for us, but not internalizing these is the lesson we want to teach. We must share how we listen to our inner wisdom - the person inside of us that has already met the goal. When we embody these leadership practices, we model what it’s like to take the advice of the late poet Sylvia Plath: we go out and do it. We get out of our own way because we realize why “...it isn’t your room that’s a prison, it’s yourself.”