New Year’s Resolutions for Leaders

New Year’s Resolutions for Leaders

Here’s a quick list of ideas for leaders.  The list includes a few of the standards, but aims to inspire some new ideas for each of us:

1. Listen More – Find yourself speaking more than you listen?  Commit to listening a greater percentage of the time.
2. Succession Planning – Too many leaders let real succession planning wait too long, if they do it at all.  Why not start the New Year right with specific steps to ensure strong succession planning throughout the organization?
3. Serve More – This year, why not commit to asking yourself regularly, “how will this decision / action / message serve the organization better?”
4. Development Planning – Does everyone reporting to you have a strong, specific and measurable professional development plan?  If you’re not growing the organization, who is?  Perhaps this is the year to really tackle the matter.
5. Multi-Channel Communication – Often, as leaders, we forget that people benefit from different methods of communication.  Perhaps this year is a good time to ensure your messages are spoken, written and broadcast.
6. Open Door Policy – Were you “too busy” to maintain that open door policy last year?  Try opening it again.  If not all day every day, perhaps hold open door office hours and stick to them this year.
7. Responsiveness – Is your inbox volume out of control?  Haven’t cleared that voicemail in a long time?  Try setting aside an hour a week or a daily block to review and respond to your messages regularly.
8. Strengthen Relationships – How well do you really know your coworkers, or staff?  We want to help those we care for and support.  This year, maybe we need to make more time to understand colleagues and building relationships.
9. Emphasize Credit – (and Minimize blame).  It’s too easy to give blame out as “accountability”.  This year, maybe we need to ensure for each accountability message, we provide at least 10 praise / credit messages.
10. Physical Fitness – (This one always need to be included) Whether it’s weight loss, increased exercise or dropping a bad habit, this standard is important for leaders to maintain stress levels.  You may also find increased productivity.

What is your leadership resolution?