Are You Setting Leadership Goals for Yourself?

Anybody who has reached a supervisory level is familiar with goal setting. We are given goals by our managers and then set goals for our departments and our employees. This hierarchy of goals provides us with individual and departmental targets intended to achieve the corporate goals, which are promulgated from on high. When we achieve our goals, we sometimes even get bonuses, which are always very welcome.

These goals all relate either to organizational objectives or personal benchmarks. We are encouraged by these goals to learn more, develop new skills, and work harder and smarter to meet the standards of performance set for us. Seldom do these goals involve anything about leadership, which is a quality that supervisors are supposed to have.

Leadership appears to come easier to those who are charismatic, but that is not a gift many of us have. Good leaders, that are not necessarily charismatic, exhibit a high degree of integrity as well as other character strengths such as perseverance, focus, humility, and a commitment to the well-being of those they are leading. 

Leaders are important to the success of the enterprise, and it is something they want to nourish, but seldom is there any set of leadership goals. Reducing DSO from 45 to 40 days has nothing to do with leadership, though being a good leader may help your credit department achieve this goal. Likewise, goals that relate to improving your skillset and character may amplify your leadership abilities but are not related to leadership itself. 

Six Goals for Becoming a Better Leader

Instead, leadership goals are directly related to developing the attributes that will make you a better leader. These are in fact social skills that will help you interact with, develop and motivate your staff to accomplish more than they would as a leaderless group of employees. Here then are six goals that will help you become a better leader:

1. Become a More Active Listener: If you jump to conclusions, shoot from the hip, and are quick to make assumptions, you might do well to listen more carefully to your superiors, peers, and staff. George Washington was the essential man in the founding of America, which is remarkable when you think about the brilliance of the other founders. Benjamin Franklin was probably the wisest, John Adams the most well-read, Thomas Jefferson the most sophisticated, Madison the most judicious, and Hamilton the most intelligent, but it was Washington, who sat and listened through their deliberations who was called upon by the Continental Congress to lead the Army, and then by the people to lead the Nation. His understanding of all the arguments presented in the Continental Congress is reflected in the means he used to educate his troops about ‘The Cause' for which they were fighting. He also listened to his officers, his troops, and his military advisors and subsequently transformed a rag-tag militia into an army that defeated the British at Yorktown, who was considered the best trained and disciplined fighting force in the 18th century.

2. Provide More Effective Feedback: Leaders listen to communicate, and the best leaders communicate in a variety of ways. Part of that is because they recognize each person is different and each person responds differently to assorted types of input. Some people need a coach to be hard on them while others develop the most from a more personal mentoring relationship. Aspiring leaders, therefore, need to learn to provide feedback to each follower in the most effective way for that person. Through the process of providing feedback, leaders are also engaged in identifying talent and developing future leaders. It's part of the cycle of life that involves current leaders sharing their experience, knowledge, and wisdom with the next generation.

3. Become More Resilient: Leaders understand that to be successful, they need to be able to adapt as circumstances evolve. Otherwise, you might become a one-shot wonder. Change is a constant and leaders are able to identify what is important versus what is peripheral, and then act accordingly. They are able to focus on primary issues without getting distracted by the surrounding noise. At the Civil War Battle of Shiloh, Ulysses S. Grant had ordered General Prentiss to “hold on at all hazards” along a sunken country road that came to be known as the “Hornet's Nest.” This he did until he was surrounded and had to surrender with his 2,200 remaining troops. Military Academy doctrine at the time dictated that Grant should have retreated to save his army from a larger aggressor, but Grant was counting on fresh troops arriving the next day, and the delay and losses inflicted on the Confederate troops at the Hornet's Nest ensured that Grant was able to turn the tide the following day and go on to victory. Grant learned to adapt when other Union Generals were prone to hesitate, which is why President Lincoln eventually chose him to lead the Army of the Potomac and defeat Robert E. Lee.

4. Optimize Processes: To improve the performance of your team, it is more important that you enable everybody to work smarter as opposed to trying to motivate them to work harder. There's nothing wrong with motivating people to work harder, but working smarter raises the bar for what can be achieved. Leadership involves identifying the best way to get the job done, so it behooves you to hone your process skills. Time spent reviewing your processes to identify weaknesses and improve throughput is a leader's responsibility. In so doing, you will make your employees' jobs easier, and they will appreciate your leadership in that respect.

5. Be a Better Example: Leading by example should not be taken lightly. Bad leaders also lead by example, but that seldom leads to good endings. The approach to take is Servant Leadership. Robert Greenleaf coined that term in his 1970 essay, “The Servant as Leader.” His definition: “The servant-leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve first.” The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership goes on to define servant leadership as “a philosophy and set of practices that enrich the lives of individuals, builds better organizations, and ultimately creates a more just and caring world.” Servant leaders focus on the growth and well-being of the people in their organization, seeking to help them grow as individuals. When people are growing, they are motivated to accomplish more.

6. Be Prepared to Accept Personal Responsibility: When things go wrong, leaders don't blame. Instead, they fix it. Failures are a learning opportunity for the leader, both personally and as a means of teaching those they lead. We've all heard the story of General George Patton striking a soldier in World War Two, ostensibly to motivate him to fight. Severely reprimanded and relieved of his command by Eisenhower, the combustible Patton, to the surprise of many, accepted responsibility, publicly apologized to his troops, and meekly took his medicine. As a result, he got another chance and proved to be the Allies' most effective commander. Whether the leader makes the mistake or team members fail at their tasks causing the entire organization to fall short of its objectives, the leader needs to take responsibility and in so doing, as much as possible, insulate his or her team from the fallout.

Leadership is important to organizations and it is something they should want to develop among their employees. Good leadership in the ranks helps attract better staff and promotes creativity and innovation. It facilitates teamwork along with a sense of purpose and ongoing accomplishment. As a result, morale is higher as is productivity when there is good leadership.

All this is just as true for credit organizations as it is for other units across the enterprise. To help you apply these six goals as a credit manager, we've assembled the following chart: