12 Powerful Leadership Goals That Can Impact Your Organization

Great leadership does a lot for your company. It can literally double your profits and boost your employee retention. Effective leadership drives organizational success and is powerful. Leadership affects every level of the company, so it needs to be developed. How can you foster this development of leadership skills?

Leadership goals are aspiring objectives to become better and more effective leaders. Here are 12 examples to get you started, helping your company’s leadership hit the next level.

1. Visionary Strategy

The goal: Develop and communicate a clear and inspiring vision for the organization's future, aligning teams towards a shared purpose.

Vision in general is something that can orient employees toward a common goal and drive their work. When you have your leaders work toward providing that vision, you’re helping to give the entire team something to work toward. It’s not just inspiring – a shared vision also boosts productivity. How can you work toward creating vision? Here are a couple of ideas:

• Craft a vision statement
• Help your team really understand the goal of your organization

2. Open Communication

The goal: Establish transparent communication channels, encourage regular feedback, and ensure information flows freely across all levels of the organization.

The good news is that open communication improves employee engagement. With only 32% of employees actively engaged with their work, it’s more important than ever to improve communication. So how can you work on leadership and improve open communication? Here are our best practices:

• Model open communication. Have an open door policy and be honest and transparent. That can help open communication spread throughout the organization. 
• Hold regular reviews. To get regular feedback going, it’s important to hold regular reviews—and with leadership too. The best leaders also get feedback. 

3. Employee Development

The goal: Create individualized development plans for team members, fostering their growth, and helping them reach their full potential.

Helping craft individual and custom development plans for every team member is important. A lack of development opportunities is one of the top reasons why employees quit. Employees want development opportunities. In fact, 92% of employees consider it important, and 32% consider it the most valued part of their job. And companies that do provide development opportunities see 34% higher retention.

It might be time to sit down with your leaders and show them why this matters so much, so they’re ready to create those opportunities with you. 

4. Inclusive Leadership

The goal: Champion diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, ensuring a welcoming and respectful workplace for employees from all backgrounds.

Leaders should be the ones championing diversity and inclusion. More diverse companies have higher levels of creativity, engagement, collaboration, and productivity. So how do you create inclusive leadership that helps your organization thrive? Here are some ways to get started:

• Have diverse leadership. Diverse management teams see 19% more revenue, but it’s also how you can really spread diversity through your organization and see lasting and positive change. Start by promoting diversity in leadership to actually help create the change you want to see. 
• Create a culture of inclusiveness. With an inclusive culture, people feel respected and valued. How do you create this type of culture? You can start by using inclusive language, listening to employees’ feedback, and expanding offered benefits to be more inclusive (like offering floating holidays). 

5. Team Collaboration

The goal: Promote cross-functional collaboration and teamwork to maximize collective creativity, efficiency, and problem-solving capabilities.

Team collaboration is actually a way to improve problem solving and productivity. So how can you improve collaboration? Here are a few ideas:

• Create goals. Having a clear understanding of purpose and vision can actually boost collaboration on a team. Sitting down with teams and crafting goals together is a great way to get started improving collaboration. 
• Encourage creativity. A creative team is a collaborative one. Have brainstorming sessions and really encourage the team to think outside of the box. 

6. Performance Improvement

The goal: Set performance metrics and goals that motivate teams to consistently exceed expectations and drive continuous improvement.

Alongside growing professionally, we all want to improve our performance at work as well. Your leadership team does, and your individual employees do too. Reaching this goal encourages leaders to set high expectations. When a leader’s expectations are high (like this goal recommends), productivity and performance automatically go up. So set those high goals and get the team to drive continuous improvement! 

7. Succession Planning

The goal: Identify and develop potential leaders within the organization, ensuring a seamless transition for critical roles.

Your leaders aren’t going to stay at your company forever. Even if they don’t leave to further their career, there’s always retirement. It's best to have a succession plan in place to train future leaders. Here are a few ways to start planning for this inevitability:

• Hold regular leadership training
• Don’t forget to promote diverse leaders
• Aim to create mentorship and coaching opportunities  
• Provide regular feedback to promote growth

8. Change Management

The goal: Lead teams through change and uncertainty by providing guidance, reassurance, and adapting strategies to navigate challenges.

Change can be scary for everyone, HR and leadership included. The goal here is to provide strong guidance on how change is going to work, to lead teams smoothly to the other side. Here are a couple of tips:

• Be honest. Being honest and transparent when communicating about a change shows you trust your employees, and they love that. People appreciate when you’re honest with them about why a change is happening.
• Address employee concerns. Have an open door policy, and provide ample opportunities for your employees to express their concerns. Listen with empathy and try to help them work through why they’re concerned. Again, it’s important to be honest here too. 
• Provide resources for adjustment. Change can be stressful! You might consider providing employees with access to therapy and other mental health support to help them during changing times. 

9. Customer-Centric Focus

The goal: Drive a customer-first culture by emphasizing the importance of meeting customer needs and delivering exceptional experiences.

When you’re focusing on the customer’s experience, you’re going to be actively improving it.  So how can you create that customer-centric focus? You might consider making it a part of your team goals or even your mission. You want to provide your customers with great experiences, so let that drive the work your company does. 

10. Innovation and Adaptation

The goal: Foster a culture of innovation, encouraging employees to think creatively and adapt to emerging trends and technologies.

Here’s the thing: innovative companies perform better financially than the market average. It makes sense since these are the companies that adapt and utilize the newest technologies. They’re the ones that are flexible enough to survive changes and modern growth. To really foster an innovation culture, it can be a good idea for you and your leadership team to create opportunities for employees to share their ideas – bold ones can help you reach new heights. 

11. Community Engagement

The goal: Establish connections with local communities and industry networks, contributing to the organization's reputation and social impact.

Almost 76% of Americans want to work for a company that’s actively involved with doing good. So working toward community engagement will really benefit your organization from the inside out. It can be particularly powerful to connect with the local community to ensure the work you’re doing will have real impact – something that employees today desperately want. 

12. Wellness Advocacy

The goal: Prioritize employee wellbeing by encouraging work-life wellness, stress reduction, and utilization of wellness benefits.

Your company spends 2–16% of employees’ salaries on their health related absences. This leadership goal is all about putting an end to excess costs and not supporting your employees’ wellness and wellbeing. We’ve got a lot more to say on this!  

Using Wellness to Reduce Healthcare Costs

Workforce wellness is a primary determinant of a company’s healthcare costs. Supporting the health of your staff with an employee wellbeing program can directly impact your healthcare spending — three out of four of HR leaders report their wellness program reduces the cost of providing healthcare benefits.

In a study of more than 19,000 employees, Wellhub clients saw their healthcare costs reduce by up to 35%. These are significant savings, especially as the cost of providing healthcare to employees in the U.S. is anticipated to rise more than 6% year over year.

Speak with a Wellbeing Specialist today to discuss how we can help you reduce your healthcare costs.

References

• Agius, A. (2023 January 9). 12 Crucial Strategies for Promoting Team Collaboration — Plus, The Biggest Collaboration Roadblocks, According to ClickUp’s CEO. Hubspot. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from  https://blog.hubspot.com/service/team-collaboration.  
• Bevan, S. & S. Hayday. (2001). Costing Sickness Absences in the UK. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://www.employment-studies.co.uk/system/files/resources/files/382.pdf.  
• BrainWorks. (n.d.). Good Leadership is the Key to Employee Retention. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://brainworksinc.com/good-leadership-key-employee-retention/#:~:text=High%20retention%20is%20most%20often,their%20head%20and%20their%20hands. 
• Cox, J. (2023 February 15). Despite Economic Headwinds, Employees Still Want To Work For Companies That Care. Forbes. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/josiecox/2023/02/15/despite-economic-headwinds-employees-still-want-to-work-for-companies-that-care/?sh=5623f5016d20. 
• Doolittle, J. (2020). How Leaders Can Get the Feedback No One Wants to Give. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://www.organizationaltalent.com/post/how-leaders-can-get-the-feedback-no-one-wants-to-give#:~:text=The%20best%20leaders%20ask%20more,than%20those%20that%20don't. 
• Forbes Panel. (2021 June 24). 14 Important Benefits Of A More Diverse Leadership Team. Forbes. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2021/06/24/14-important-benefits-of-a-more-diverse-leadership-team/?sh=c2527401f9ba.  
• Gonzales, M. (2023 January 25). Gallup: Employee Disengagement Hits 9-Year High. SHRM. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/behavioral-competencies/global-and-cultural-effectiveness/pages/new-gallup-poll-employee-disengagement-hits-9-year-high.aspx#:~:text=Employee%20engagement%20has%20reached%20its,18%20percent%20were%20actively%20disengaged. 
• Jenkins, E. (2023, April 21). Vision or Statement?: The Importance of Effectively Communicating Your Company's Vision. Linked In. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/vision-statement-importance-effectively-communicating-eric-jenkins#:~:text=A%20clear%20vision%20provides%20a,productivity%2C%20and%20overall%20job%20satisfaction. 
• Johnson, J. (2022 October 5). 9 Reasons Your Best Employees Are Quitting. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://www.uschamber.com/co/run/human-resources/top-reasons-why-employees-quit#:~:text=No%20opportunities%20to%20advance&text=Other%20research%20has%20found%20that,a%20lack%20of%20career%20development. 
• Linked In Community. (2023 August 25). What are the benefits of having a clear and shared vision for your people development strategy? Linked In. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://www.linkedin.com/advice/3/what-benefits-having-clear-shared-vision-your#:~:text=from%20your%20vision-,Having%20a%20clear%20and%20shared%20vision%20for%20your%20people%20development,retention%2C%20attraction%2C%20and%20reputation. 
• Lorenzo, R., Voigt, N., Tsusaka, M., Krentz, M., and Abouzahr, K. (2018 January 23). How Diverse Leadership Teams Boost Innovation. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://www.bcg.com/publications/2018/how-diverse-leadership-teams-boost-innovation. 
• LSA Global. (n.d.). WHY HONESTY AND TRANSPARENCY WORKS WITH CHANGE MANAGEMENT. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://lsaglobal.com/why-honesty-and-transparency-works-with-change-management/.  
• Miller, S. (2022 August 16). Medical Plan Costs Expected to See Bigger Rise in 2023. SHRM. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/benefits/pages/health-plan-costs-expected-to-rise-in-2023.aspx#:~:text=The%20average%20costs%20that%20U.S.,to%20professional%20services%20firm%20Aon. 
• NACE. (2020 March 9). THE BENEFITS OF CREATING AN INCLUSIVE WORK CULTURE. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://www.naceweb.org/diversity-equity-and-inclusion/best-practices/the-benefits-of-creating-an-inclusive-work-culture/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CIn%20an%20inclusive%20work%20culture,This%20ties%20into%20innovation. 
• NSLS. (2022 February 17). WHY IS DIVERSITY IMPORTANT IN LEADERSHIP? Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://www.nsls.org/blog/why-is-diversity-important-in-leadership. 
• Ozcan, U. (2016, September 28). How Expectations Affect Performance (Empowerment in Management). Linked In. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-expectations-affect-performance-pygmalion-management-ugur-%C3%B6zcan#:~:text=If%20the%20manager's%20expectations%20are,is%20a%20drop%20in%20performance. 
• Reis, D. (2017 August 17). How innovation affects financial performance. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://www.thinkergy.com/blog/how-innovation-affects-financial-performance#:~:text=Embrace%20innovation%20and%20invest%20in,Value%20is%20what%20you%20get.%E2%80%9D.  
• Ribeiro, S. (2020 February 13). The Real Benefits of Team Collaboration in the Workplace. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://blog.flock.com/benefits-team-collaboration-work#:~:text=Collaboration%20improves%20the%20way%20your,each%20other%20reach%20your%20goals. 
• Siocon, G. (2022 September 19). 9 steps to create an inclusive workplace culture. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://recruitee.com/articles/inclusive-workplace-culture.  
• SkylineG. (n.d.). What is Leadership Development? The Process, Who it's for, & Why it's Important. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://skylineg.com/resources/blog/what-is-leadership-development#:~:text=Leadership%20development%20is%20important%20because,many%20ways%20in%20large%20organizations. 
• Super Office. (2023 August 29). HOW A CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE STRATEGY HELPS SCALE REVENUE GROWTH (AND ACHIEVE PROFITABILITY). Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://www.superoffice.com/blog/customer-experience-strategy/.  
• University of Massachusetts Global. (n.d.). Business leaders explain how professional development benefits help with employee retention. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://www.umassglobal.edu/news-and-events/blog/professional-development-benefits. 
• Van Epps, D. (2023 April 5). Building a Collaborative Culture: Tips for Fostering Teamwork in the Workplace | Leadership Blog | Leadership Addict. Linked In. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/building-collaborative-culture-tips-fostering-van-epps-ms-hrod-2e#:~:text=As%20a%20team%2C%20it%20is,encourage%20them%20to%20work%20together. 
• Wharton Online. (2021 November 22). 5 Reasons to Offer Employees Learning & Development Opportunities. University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://online.wharton.upenn.edu/blog/5-reasons-to-offer-employees-learning-development-opportunities/#:~:text=92%25%20of%20employees%20think%20having,15%25%20more%20engaged%20at%20work. 
• Zenger, J. (2015 January 15). Great Leaders Can Double Profits, Research Shows.  Forbes. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackzenger/2015/01/15/great-leaders-can-double-profits-research-shows/?sh=5f257feb6ca6.