125. Goal Focused Leadership

an excerpt from my upcoming book

Hey y’all.

As you may know, I’m in the process of writing a book about leadership. Specifically, I go through 8 tactics of successful leadership.

The working title is “Leadership Is Not A Title”, which may help give you better insight into the By Title Only name of this newsletter. Leadership isn’t what people normally think about when they think about leadership.

I’ve never shown anybody what I’ve written but, well, I like you and would really love your feedback.

What follows is a rough draft excerpt from the chapter on Goal Focused Leadership. Please let me know your thoughts on the content, the style or anything else you can think of thinking about.

Thank you!!

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Goal Focused Leadership

Ralph Waldo Emerson famously wrote, “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” Personally, I think Ralph may have eaten a few too many funny mushrooms when he wrote that.

If I understand him correctly, he is saying that people should not be so focused on simply getting to where they are headed because getting there is not the point. It doesn’t matter, he’s implying, if you ever even reach the destination. It’s the attempt to get to that destination where the rose smelling should occur.

Well, Mr. Waldo Emerson (can I just call you Ralph?), I beg to disagree.

Contrary to what Emerson said, the destination is critically important for any leader.

Visualizing a goal and reaching that goal are, in fact, the very elements that define a great leader.

With all due respect to Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Theroux, leadership is not about aimlessly wandering through the woods.

No great companies were built without defining and working towards achieving their destinations. Even parenting, the ultimate leadership role, is about deciding what type of human you want your child to be and feeling pride when they actually emerge into that type of person.

Life and leadership is about BOTH the destination AND the journey.

Leaders are goal-focused.

There are multiple opportunities to set goals every day. Short term, mid-term and long term goals can be thought about and focused on. Goals can change along the way, but you’ve got to be moving forward in some direction in order for them to change.

A goal without a plan is just a dream.

Leaders set goals and create plans to achieve them.

There are three specific goals that leaders focus on:

1. Who they want to be

2. What they want to do

3. How they are going to get there

Let’s take Bill Gates as an example. In 1975 he started a little company with the audacious vision of having a computer on every desk and in every home. Keep in mind, this is what computers were like in 1975:

I’m not sure, back in the 70s and 80s, that every desk even had space for a computer. That’s how audacious the goal was at the time. He either had to create much smaller computers or much larger desks.

As it turns out, Bill’s start-up (Microsoft) achieved it’s vision and, in the process, turned it into one of the largest companies in the world. Now Bill Gates has set a new goal: to reduce extreme poverty across the world.

I guarantee you, reaching the goal destination will be a lot better than the journey. More people will die in the journey than they will when the destination is reached.

Don’t get me wrong, focusing on the destination doesn’t mean leaders don’t have fun. It doesn’t mean the journey shouldn’t be enjoyed. In fact, the word “goal” has gotten a bad reputation.

When I tell people they need to have goals in life, they immediately start thinking about setting financial or career goals and I can sense their blood pressure rising. But setting goals in life isn’t all about finance and jobs. A goal could be something as simple as “embrace new experiences” or “don’t forget to laugh”.

One of my goals in life is to continually work on understanding and bettering myself. I pursue this through a daily focus on reading, writing and reminding myself to keep an open mind. And when I have even small achievements, I’m elated.

Another goal of mine is to be present with my wife and child; to appreciate them and enjoy our time together.

I have shame to admit that it isn’t always easy for me.

I remind myself of this goal when I am on my 3rd hour of playing dolls with my daughter, or when I’m reading to her the same book for the umpteenth time. Just remembering that my goal is to be present and enjoy our time together, enables me to let go of the experience playing with dolls or reading the book and embrace the experience bonding with my daughter. I remember that she won’t always want me to play with her or read to her. And the only thing worse than playing dolls for 3 hours with my daughter, is when she suddenly doesn’t want to play with me anymore.

As a result, it’s when I achieve my goal of being present and enjoying the time together that I feel the most rewarded.