New Year’s Development Goals for Leaders

By Dan McCarthy, Management & Leadership Expert

For many leaders, it’s a time to reflect on accomplishments for the year and establish goals for the upcoming New Year. 

It’s also a good time to set leadership development goals, either as part of a formal development planning process, or just because it’s a proven way to continuously improve as a leader.

While leadership development goals should always

be specific and relevant to the individual leader and linked to the organizational context, there are most likely a few common ones that most any leader could benefit from.

Here’s a list to choose from, based on my executive coaching work from the past year. While all of them are worthy goals, it’s best to focus on the 1-3. Then, once sufficient progress is made, you can always go back and select a new goal or goals. You may also find that many of the goals are related to each other, which is often the case. The key is to pick the one that seems to be at the root cause.

For the upcoming new year, my goal is to:
1. Delegate more. 

2. Be more strategic.

3. Be a better listener.

4. Micromanage less (or not at all!). 

5. Improve my financial acumen.
6. Take action on chronic underperformers. 7. Be a better coach.

8. Improve my work-life balance.

9. Create my own succession plan.

10. Improve collaboration. 

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