The key insight:
A leadership goal that cannot be checked in a quarter is a wish. The test is whether a colleague could tell, without asking you, that something has changed.
Most lists of leadership goals are written for someone about to manage their first team. At director or VP level the problem is different. You already deliver, so the goal that matters is rarely "communicate better" or "be more strategic". It is a specific change in what you do, chosen because it is what the next seat will test, and phrased so that someone else could see it happen.
This guide gives fifteen worked leadership goals for directors and VPs, grouped by what they build, with the evidence that shows each one is moving. It then sets out how to choose two or three from an honest read of your own profile rather than a wish list. If you would rather start from the evidence, you can take the free Leadership Psychometric, a 50-question leadership profile that scores five dimensions, and come back to pick your goals.
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What makes a leadership goal worth setting
Three properties separate a leadership goal from a resolution.
It is specific. In their review of goal-setting research, Locke and Latham report that specific, difficult goals consistently led to higher performance than urging people to do their best. "Do your best" has no external referent, so people define success for themselves and results vary widely. "Be a more strategic leader" is a do-your-best goal.
It comes with feedback. The same review is plain that goals work when people receive summary feedback showing progress against them. For a leadership goal that means deciding in advance who will tell you whether it is working and how often.
It matches the task. On complex or unfamiliar work, Locke and Latham find that a performance target can crowd out the learning that makes the work possible, and recommend a specific, challenging learning goal instead. That matters here, because many leadership goals involve a capability you have not used before. If you have never run a board paper process, the first goal is to learn how it works, not to win approval for a proposal.
A fourth test is our own. A leadership goal should be checkable inside a quarter. Anything longer belongs in a plan. If you want the plan document that holds these together, our guide to the leadership development plan covers its structure, and individual development plan examples shows how plans look at different levels.
Leadership goals that build strategic scope
These goals widen what you are accountable for thinking about. They suit someone whose function runs well and whose next seat is judged on the enterprise.
| Leadership goal | What you do | Evidence by quarter end |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Tie the function plan to company priorities | Rewrite your three-year plan so every initiative maps to a stated company priority, and drop those that do not | The revised plan has been reviewed with your manager's manager, and at least one initiative has been cut or merged |
| 2. Publish a stop list | Name three things your function will stop doing, with owners and dates | The list is agreed, communicated to the team, and one item has actually stopped |
| 3. Own one decision outside your function | Take a commercial or cross-functional decision where you are not the subject expert | A written recommendation exists, and you can name what you learned about the area you borrowed |
| 4. Present one recommendation to the executive committee or board | Bring a decision paper, not an update, with a clear recommendation and the strongest counter-argument | The paper was discussed, and you have written feedback on how it landed |
These sit closest to our guide to strategic thinking skills, which covers the thinking behind them. The goal is the behaviour.
Leadership goals that build team capability
These goals make the function less dependent on you, which is the single most common condition for promotion.
| Leadership goal | What you do | Evidence by quarter end |
|---|---|---|
| 5. Name a successor-ready deputy | Identify one person, agree a development plan and give them a stretch assignment | The deputy has led something visible without you in the room |
| 6. Delegate one recurring decision completely | Write down the decision, the boundaries and the information you need, then step out | You were not consulted on the last five instances of that decision |
| 7. Run skip-level conversations | Meet people two levels below you on a fixed rhythm and ask what is getting in their way | Three changes made as a direct result, communicated back to the people who raised them |
| 8. Close the performance conversation you have been postponing | Hold the conversation with a written message and a dated follow-up | The conversation happened, expectations are written down, and the next review is in the diary |
Our guides to delegation skills and skip-level meetings cover goals 6 and 7 in detail.
Leadership goals that build influence upward and across
These goals matter most for the step from director to VP, where results depend on people who do not report to you.
| Leadership goal | What you do | Evidence by quarter end |
|---|---|---|
| 9. Build two standing peer relationships outside your function | Agree a regular meeting and a small piece of joint work with each | Both relationships have produced something neither function would have done alone |
| 10. Talk to the three most affected people before every major proposal | Hold short conversations before the formal meeting and reflect what you hear in the paper | Your last three proposals reached the room with no surprise objections |
| 11. Ask a sponsor for one specific action | Identify who speaks for you when you are not there, and ask for one concrete thing, such as an introduction or a stretch role | The action happened, and you thanked them with a result |
| 12. Settle one long-running disagreement | Agree the criteria for the decision with your counterpart before arguing the answer | The decision was made and neither side relitigates it |
Influencing without authority at C-suite level goes further into the first two.
Leadership goals that build judgement under pressure
These goals concern how you decide when the stakes are high and the information is incomplete. They suit leaders whose results are strong but who are rated lower for steadiness.
| Leadership goal | What you do | Evidence by quarter end |
|---|---|---|
| 13. Keep a decision log | Record five consequential decisions with the options, your reasoning and what would change your mind, then review them at ninety days | You can say which of your assumptions held and which did not |
| 14. Build a pause into high-stakes moments | Ask one question before you respond in the next three tense meetings | Two colleagues, asked separately, report that you seem steadier |
| 15. Decide with seventy per cent of the information | Make one reversible decision early, state the assumptions and set a review date | The decision was made on time, and you reviewed it on the date you set |
How to choose two or three leadership goals
A list of fifteen is a menu, not a plan. Choosing well is the hard part, and the usual way of choosing, picking what appeals, tends to select what you are already good at.
Start from your thinnest dimension for the next seat. The 50-question leadership profile in the Leadership Psychometric scores Vision Thinking, Execution Drive, Influencing Power, People Intelligence and Composure. The score does not tell you what to do. It tells you where to look, and the goal says what you will do about it.
| If this dimension is thin for the next seat | Look first at |
|---|---|
| Vision Thinking | Goals 1, 2 and 3 |
| Execution Drive | Goals 6, 13 and 15 |
| Influencing Power | Goals 9, 10, 11 and 12 |
| People Intelligence | Goals 5, 7 and 8 |
| Composure | Goals 13, 14 and 15 |
Check the choice against outside evidence. Your latest 360, your manager's candid view and one person two levels down will each give you a read. The NHS Leadership Academy's Healthcare Leadership Model pairs a self-assessment tool with a 360 feedback tool for the same reason, and describes the aim as helping people develop by discovering and exploring their behaviours. If the self-assessment and the outside view disagree, the disagreement is the interesting part. Our guide to leadership blind spots covers how to ask.
Take at least one goal that builds scope. A development programme made only of fixes keeps you where you are. One scope goal points the quarter at the next seat.
Make the first one a learning goal if the capability is new. If you have never presented to a board, your first goal is to attend two board papers' preparation and write down how they are built. The performance goal follows.
JOH Partners makes the same point from the board side in its piece on CHRO line of sight to the board, where the argument is that a succession bench should be scored for readiness against strategy and not only listed by name. A goal chosen from an honest read of your profile is how an individual makes that readiness visible.
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Map your route to the role you want
How ready you are for your target role, the gaps to close, the route there and a 90-day plan to start.
Map my route →Turning leadership goals into a quarter
Write each goal in one sentence that begins with a verb and ends with a date. Add the name of the person who will tell you whether it worked. Put the review in the diary now, not when you remember.
Then run the same check at ninety days for each goal: did the thing happen, who noticed, and what would you do differently? If the answer to the second question is nobody, the goal was too small or too private. Make the next one visible.
If your destination is a specific seat, our Route to your target role tool on AssessYou maps the gap between where you are and the role you want. If you would rather see what the leadership profile covers before creating an account, the Leadership Psychometric overview sets it out. These goals are about leadership behaviour; if you are choosing between destinations, our guide to career goals examples for senior professionals covers that question, and the wider Leadership collection covers the rest.
Key takeaways
- A leadership goal worth setting is specific, comes with feedback, matches the task and can be checked inside a quarter.
- Fifteen examples fall into four groups: strategic scope, team capability, influence upward and across, and judgement under pressure.
- Choose two or three, not fifteen. Start from the dimension that is thinnest for the next seat and include at least one goal that builds scope.
- For a capability you have not used before, set a learning goal first, then a performance goal.
- Check your choice against outside evidence: your 360, your manager and an independent profile.
Frequently asked questions
- What are good leadership goals for a director?
- Good director-level leadership goals are specific, observable within a quarter and aimed at the scope of the next role rather than the current one. Examples include replacing your function's plan with one mapped to the company's priorities, delegating a recurring decision completely, and naming a successor-ready deputy with an agreed development plan. Each describes something a colleague could notice without being told.
- How many leadership goals should I set at once?
- Two or three. Goal-setting research finds that specific, difficult goals outperform vague intentions, but a long list dilutes attention and commitment. Choose one goal that builds scope, one that builds your team and, if your profile points to it, one that addresses a specific dimension that is thin for the next seat.
- What is the difference between a leadership goal and a development plan?
- A goal is a single, checkable change in what you do. A plan is the document that holds two or three goals together with the support, exposure and review dates that make them realistic. Write the goals first, because a plan built before you know what you are trying to change tends to become a list of courses.
- How do I choose leadership goals that fit me rather than a template?
- Start from evidence about yourself, not a list of aspirations. Your latest 360, your manager's candid view and an independent profile such as the free 50-question Leadership Psychometric together show which dimension is thinnest for the role you want. Pick the goal that moves that dimension, and test it against the question of what you would do differently on Monday.
- Should a leadership goal be about learning or about performance?
- For a capability you have not used before, set a learning goal first. Locke and Latham's review of goal-setting research finds that on complex or unfamiliar tasks a hard performance target can push people into poor strategies, and that a specific, challenging learning goal is the better route. Once you have the method, switch to a performance goal.
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