Identify your Focus Area
When working with leaders to hone in on one or two areas of focus for their growth, I recommend they consider a number of things:
1) What is the most significant organizational priority that you will be accountable for accomplishing this year?
At first leaders don’t always see the relevance of this. But, over the decades, I have consistently found that when leaders align their personal development plan directly to their key organizational priority (which they will undoubtedly devote a lot of energy to) they are much more likely to also follow-through on their personal growth plan…as it is not “one more thing”, but rather a critical success factor in order for them to achieve the organizational goal.
When I was a Vice President of Planning & Organizational Excellence at a regional health system, we developed a Leadership & Management Effectiveness System. It included several inter-related aspects – one which was a Personal Development Plan (PDP). Each and every leader, at every level, defined one each year based on numerous inputs and were supported with various resources to accomplish their leadership PDP.
As a member of the core team developing this Leadership Effectiveness system, I was responsible for auditing the PDPs in order to distill learnings for all as well as identify improvements to make our overall Leadership Effectiveness System even more impactful. In each of the annual audits, I discovered that there was a significantly higher rate of completion and success when leaders tied their areas for personal growth and development directly to what their most significant organizational priorities would demand of them that year. Hence, they would tackle the two hand-in-hand: personal leadership growth to accomplish their organizational priorities.
Whereas, I found that those who chose a PDP focus area based on something that was very important to them (or their boss) at the time of selection, but did not choose or align also based on their most vital organizational work for the year ahead, they had a much lower completion and success rate with their personal development plan. This clear pattern emerged in each of the first two audit cycles and hence we built this learning directly into the PDP selection process after that.
Likewise, when working with leaders now – especially in the realm of leadership development – we always maintain a clear connection between what the organization needs from them (the work, their key metrics, their assigned organizational projects) and the chosen areas of focus for their leadership improvement and growth.
2) When selecting an area of focus for improved leadership effectiveness, another key consideration is a 360 degree perspective.
In supporting leaders who are seeking (or needing) to be more effective, I often do either an interview-based 360 assessment or a tool-based 360. The particular 360 tool is hand-selected for the particular organizational culture, role, and context.
Sometimes, I use a combination of an interview-based and tool-based 360 leadership assessment to inform them in selecting a worthwhile and impactful area of focus.
There are numerous benefits to using a 360° perspective when formulating an area of focus for improving your leadership effectiveness. I will delve into that further in my next article in this series.
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Kathy Letendre, President and Founder of Letendre & Associates, advises organizations and leaders to create their excellence advantage.
Contact Kathy by phone or text at 802-779-4315 or via email.