Leadership and Goals in the New Year

What changed? The earth did another circle around the sun and we shifted into a new year. New starts, new beginnings? Not really, same life, same job, same ideas, same principles and some new goals added to the list to achieve in the year.

The excitement and the newness are a great way to start focussing on things that we have been meaning to do but haven’t got around to doing them yet. But, baseline, nothing much changes, unless we invest in the effort that needs to be brought in and the discipline for the change to happen or a new initiative to start.

What doesn’t change are our value systems and the way we approach life and work. Our roles as leaders are also pretty much carved out and so are our leadership styles. Having said that, let’s look at how we can look at the start of the year to reassess our position, reprogram our goals and set ourselves up for positive changes and outcomes in our lives.

Let’s look at what doesn’t change for us as leaders with the new year but what can evolve:

• Our value systems and principles
• Our leadership styles
• The perceptions of people about us
• The solid foundation of leadership – honesty, fairness and transparency
• Empathy and our emotional quotient

The start of the year is a construct in our minds which helps us align the start of something new for us with it so we can leverage that to our advantage. We all have our own ways of chasing down what we want done and we need to hold on to that as that will define our process to set out to achieve them.

As leaders, we often don’t get the time and space to spend on ourselves for our individual goals. But here’s a simple process we can put in place to do just that.

Let’s look at Goal Setting and Planning as a start and put down a process to make it happen.

• Write down your goals both personal and professional and split them so you can work on each set
• Make them as specific as possible and put down all the details and outcomes relating to it
• Put timelines and periodic measurements to track progress
• Start small, stay consistent
• Plan with plan a’s, b’s and c’s if need be
• Prioritise and place them based on importance
• Create the action plan for each goal and stick with it
• Make them in a way that you can reorganise and change according to how the process pans out

Goal planning will help align the goals into areas of achievable development

Use the standard SMART guideline:
S – Specific (or Significant).
M – Measurable (or Meaningful).
A – Attainable (or Action-Oriented).
R – Relevant (or Rewarding).
T – Time-bound (or Trackable).

As for me, I don’t specifically do new year goals or resolutions as I somehow feel they are bound to be broken, so I just plan and prep my goals on the go, which also works well if you know how to make them work for you! 😊

Here’s wishing all of you a fabulous 2020 and may this be a phenomenal year for you on your leadership journey and more!

Shreya Krishnan

Vice President - Marketing and Communications at Aon India Insurance Brokers

Shreya is a CSR Specialist and Corporate Grooming Consultant. Her interests lie in Activism, Dance, Theatre, Poetry, Blogging, Modelling, Acting. She considers herself an Earth Warrior and is an Event Anchor and Trainer. She is a Pageant Winner and public speaker.