Are Goals Necessary for Leadership Development?

Goals — those specific, measurable achievements that you can check off your list and relish in the accomplishment of. Why bother setting them? What's the point? 

I'm going to tell you something you might not believe. The purpose of having a goal is not to achieve that goal. 

What is the purpose of a goal then? It's to motivate you to work towards the goal.

Let's face it. Things change. Goals get modified or abandoned. That's not inherently a bad thing. 

Where does the power lie in a goal? It lies in our vision of achieving it, or more accurately, our vision of reality after we've achieved it. Seeing that vision — and believing that it's possible — is key to using the goal to pull you forward.

Are Intentions More Powerful than Goals?

I have found that strong intentions are often more powerful for me than goals. They, too, motivate me to take action in the direction I want to grow. Sometimes, translating intentions into clear goals inappropriately scopes down the intention. And it simply isn't necessary to add to my motivation.

Intentions are more adaptable and pervasive than goals. With that, they are also more nebulous and fuzzy. A goal can be compartmentalized, whereas an intention has the power to pervade more realms of our life and thus incorporate a systems-level solution.

For example

I find intentions more powerful, but I still use goals sometimes. For example, like most businesses, I have a revenue goal each year. That being a very clear number makes sense, and it serves to motivate me to partake in business development activities, which are important but never really urgent. 

Compare that to my intention to improve my coaching. This is a strong intention that shows up in my conversations with my coach regularly and stays top of mind naturally. It simply doesn't need to become a goal with a finish line, both due to its ongoing nature, and also because defining "better" would limit its scope unnecessarily.

There is an intention behind the revenue goal, too, of course: to run a successful business that continues gaining momentum. However, if I just had that intention without the revenue goal, it likely wouldn't be tangible enough for me to translate into clear actions. 

With intentions, I don't have to worry so much about how the clear actions happen; they tend to just happen because the intention is strong enough to become almost like a paradigm.

The Bottom Line

Consider a strong intention next time you're tempted to set a goal. An intention has the power to permeate your thoughts and actions at a more systemic level than a goal. You might consider displaying your intention in your physical world somewhere you will have no choice but to see it every day.