How do you align your goals with your leader's strategy?

To align your goals more with your leader's strategy understanding the bigger picture and making sure you both have shared values, passions, and priorities is important. When you're in a setting where everyone is working toward a shared passion or purpose you can accomplish so much more. First, find out what your core values are and what you need or want in a leader. Asking lots of questions and voicing your concerns/wants from the beginning helps you to find people more aligned with your goals. Creating a list of questions you have about the business and setting aside time to talk with your leadership is a great way to go about it. Always keeping an open dialogue with leadership and making sure everyone is on the same page is crucial.

As a team member or a leader, communication is one of the most important factors in running a successful business and keeping a healthy work environment. Expressing your goals, needs, and expectations upfront cultivates trust and eliminates future conflicts. Giving clarity to your team on what your vision is, your wants/needs, and progress a long the way opens up communication and makes them feel more comfortable sharing theirs. Having a day a week where you sit down with your team and all share a list of concerns or progress would be efficient in boosting goal alignment.

When you first draft your goals, put together a reasonable set of goals you believe you can achieve - and remember there will likely be changes. If your leader has other priorities they want to add, ask what else should be removed. Setting goals without a candid conversation about capacity can lead to stress, frustration, and discouragement.

Look across other areas of the organization so you can collaborate with other teams in addition to your own. Discuss goals and approaches that will benefit multiple organization priorities, as well as your specific goals. Have honest conversations about priorities, capacity, and how you'll handle it when new information or requests pop up that might derail your progress.

We’re always creating new products & additional applications to existing ones. Be creative & expand. Try new markets that could really help a bigger population. Thanks - Sheila

Be sure to celebrate wins - even small ones! - as that feeling of accomplishment can help us tackle larger challenges. Also, reviews can feel tough - especially if we didn't meet our goals. Setting a regular cadence for review (e.g., quarterly) and maintaining a learning mindset, can be effective strategies for improving future performance. Questions like - "What worked? What didn't? What aren't we sure about/what are we still testing? And what did we learn from this that we can apply in the future?" can keep us curious and productive rather than critical and destructive.