By Frank Ofili
Are you currently in a leadership position? Are you having trouble coming up with a good leadership New Year resolution? Well, here is a list of 10 suggestions to pick from. These are things that leaders know they “should” do but often do not. You do not have to choose all of these suggestions. Just pick one or two of them and commit to it. You will be amazed at the result you will get at the end of 2013. These suggestions may also be adopted for a personal New Year resolution – depending on what your objectives are. As you may already know, a New Year resolution represents a declaration of intent to which you hold yourself accountable in the course of the year.
For 2017, I am going to:
- Develop A Charter or Roadmap for my team, group or organization. The charter or roadmap will include our purpose (or mission), our vision, our values, long-term (5-10 years) goals, objectives, and action plans. I will involve my team and other stakeholders in the development of the charter or roadmap, make sure it is communicated clearly and consistently, and follow-up on a regular basis to track progress, revise, and celebrate achievements.
- Reach out to someone who helped me become the person I am today. I will write a letter, or maybe even pay a visit, and let them know specifically what they did and why it was so important for me.
- Schedule and hold regular meetings with my team members. We will use that time to discuss our concerns, opportunities, progress on goals, development, celebrate achievements, or just reach out to our larger communities and other stakeholders. Where there is conflict, we will not shy away from it; we must face it squarely and resolve it once and for all, for the good of both our objective and all concerned.
- Decide what is important to me as a leader – what I stand for and why. I will share this with others and consistently act in a way that demonstrates these values and beliefs.
- Be more accountable and open to new ideas – I will admit my mistakes, correct them, learn from them, and stop pointing accusing fingers or apportioning blame. As the leader, I will take responsibility for anything that goes wrong and give credit to the team for anything goes right. I will also have an open mind and be more receptive to new ideas from my team members or elsewhere.
- Improve my Leadership/Management Skills – I will seek ways to improve my communication. I will learn more about how to Plan things ahead of time; organize the resources I need to achieve my objective; coordinate the activities of the various units in my group or organization; direct and issue clear instructions on how, where and when things should be done, and control the outcome of our activities so that we do not derail or detract from our overall objective. Finally, I will give the reward for good performance and encourage more feedback from others no matter how they may be.
- Listen more – I am going to seek to understand the other person’s point of view, his emotions, and insecurities; and force myself not to evaluate, judge, or offer my point of view until I am sure I have understood theirs.
- Get feedback on my leadership style – I will seek ways to get from others, evaluation or assessment of my leadership/management style so as to enable me to know how others perceive me, and where necessary to make amends.
- Mentor someone. I will go out of my way to make someone else even better than me.
- Be more innovative. I am going to look for ways of doing things better and more efficiently. I will look for possibilities to break new grounds. I will seek ways on what it takes to be an innovative leader and pick 2 or 3 things to implement and practice.
