5 Examples of Leadership SMART Goals to Improve Leadership Capability

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At its core, leadership development is about strategically safeguarding your organization. Leaders directly impact culture, productivity, and revenue, yet the closer to the proverbial (or corporate) sun they fly, the fewer chances for development there often are.

This is where SMART goals come into play. They’re more than just objectives—they’re a process. In this article, we’ll get into what SMART goals are, and break down six SMART goal examples to understand what it is that makes them SMART.

What are leadership SMART goals?

Rather than pure personal milestones, leadership SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound objectives that align with business planning.

While all goals—SMART or not—give a sense of direction and desired outcomes, SMART goals are more prescriptive in outlining how achieving a desired objective can be achieved. They create pathways for long-term progression, succession planning, and business success.

The components of leadership SMART goals

Let’s get into more detail. The smart in Leadership SMART goals stand for:

• Specific. Goals are well-defined and unambiguous, meaning no one is left scratching their heads when they come across them. For example, setting a goal to “improve your leadership skills” sounds good, but what can you measure in this case to prove improvement? On the other hand, specifying how much you intend to improve team productivity means you have something specific to work towards.
• Measurable. Goals are quantifiable, with established criteria to track and measure progress against. Setting a goal like “better coaching and mentoring” sounds great in theory, but in practice, what is “better” coaching? The idea here is to make the measurable aspect something that can be quantified with numbers—think a percentage increase in employee productivity after receiving coaching.
• Achievable. Ensure goals are realistic and attainable within your resources, capabilities, and constraints such as time or budget. An achievable goal requires effort and dedication but is still within reach. Hot tip: utilize tech to automate reminders and keep everyone accountable.
• Relevant. I.e., align goals with organizational objectives and individual growth needs. If you’re using capabilities to create goals, congrats, you’re already linking development directly to individual needs. Bonus, you can prove the relevance of a goal at the organizational level, too, given capabilities are only derived from business strategy.
• Time-bound. As with any good project, goals must have a deadline to be truly measurable, achievable, or even desirable to complete. Deadlines create accountability for leaders and help them to prioritize the goals they should work towards first (a bonus win for building strategic thinking).

The importance of setting leadership SMART goals 

A successful leader understands how their team contributes to the company’s priorities. Their team and leadership priorities are therefore aligned with the broader organizational strategy, with goals serving as actionable steps to achieve those priorities.

Aligning goals with business strategy ensures that any leadership development plans attached to goals are a) tangible, b) impactful, and c) measurable. To pack an extra punch, goals can be derived from the capability needs of individual leaders. On two fronts, you have goals that are:

1. Aligned with the needs of the business, based on the capabilities needed to achieve those goals; and
2. Directly relevant to an individual’s development needs based on their assessed capability gaps.

In this way, SMART goals are always derived from business strategy, and therefore inherently impactful for business. But what about for leaders?

Remember that the R in SMART stands for relevance. It’s easy for standard goals to be vague, with little thought put into how they serve the big picture. A SMART goal, on the other hand, forces leaders to think about why a goal needs to be set, and how their leadership efforts affect the organization.

They also ensure that leaders have more clarity and focus on their leadership journey. Clarity comes from SMART goals being well-defined (S stands for specific!), while focus is derived from the step-by-step structure the rest of the acronym provides. This means leaders (and team members) also have a clear guide to measure and track their progress as they go. In other words: They know what they’re doing, they know how to do it, and they know how they are progressing.

Plus, having a structure to follow helps leaders keep themselves and their teams accountable. T is time-bound, meaning SMART goals are on a deadline. When you have a structure to tell you what needs to be done, leaders can use that to prioritize actions to complete the goal.

How to implement leadership SMART goals

Implementing SMART goals for leaders is not an exercise in free reign. Instead, guide leaders by:

1. Identifying specific performance outcomes
2. Establishing tangible metrics
3. Evaluating feasibility
4. Outlining action plans
5. Tracking progress.

1. Define specific objectives

This means choosing your key focus area (such as improving key leadership skills, opportunities, priorities, and roles) that you want to focus on. Your objectives need to be well-defined and unambiguous to create a truly achievable goal.

If we’re starting with capabilities, you already have the desired outcome for a goal. You’d start with a capability assessment to baseline the capabilities needed for development based on the leader’s job role. The assessment would result in a visual representation of the gap between the required level of performance for the role and the level the leader currently performs.

That gap gives you the objective for the SMART goal.

2. Establish metrics

A measurable goal should have defined metrics and indicators that you can use to track your progress. If the activities in your development or action plan include attending a formal course or workshop, your indicators would be completing the course and evidence of learning transfer (which peers and supervisors can assess).

Let’s say you’ve identified public speaking skills as needed for development. Metrics have to assess something tangible, such as audience engagement, peer feedback, control of time or duration, increased opportunities to speak, or influence on team performance. Three to five metrics is the sweet spot; anymore, and you start to make measurement overly complex.

Remember that a measurable action isn’t a vague statement of success—just like specific objectives, the measure must be quantifiable.

3. Evaluate how feasible your goal is

When you have the objective and the metrics, you need to evaluate if the goal can be feasibly achieved.

“But wait,” you say. “Don’t the objective and measurements mean a goal is achievable?”

Not quite. A goal may be reasonable on paper but in practice, your organization might lack the resources to support it. Consider also how ambitious your goals are for the timeframe provided. Too easy and you’ll lack the motivation to complete them; too hard and leaders may feel frustrated or demotivated.

Take a 30-60-90 day plan, for example. When you start in a new position, you’re not going to know everything at once. Immediately throwing all resources and information at a new hire is more detrimental than beneficial, as you risk overwhelming and overloading them. So, like a well-written SMART goal, a 30-60-90 day plan helps to set expectations, provide resources and information, and give business context.

4. Create an action plan

Assess how your leadership SMART goals contribute to overall business success, and how they will address the relevant needs and aspirations of your business. (This part can be difficult to pin down, so it’s important to collaborate with The action plan is really the coming together of all the above elements, with an added layer of business alignment. In essence: putting the plan to achieve the SMART goal in writing.

There are four core steps to creating an action plan.

• Review and adjust your goals. There are always new changes, challenges, or processes leaders need to adapt to. Like the capabilities they are founded on, SMART leadership goals can evolve. Regular points of review—such as one-on-one performance conversations with supervisors and capability reassessments—ensure the goal is still actually relevant to a leader’s needs.
• Identify the purpose. It’s helpful to know the ultimate outcome of the goals and plan, whether that’s ongoing professional development, succession planning, or simply to meet personal goals. A vision makes clear how a goal factors into the organization’s mission, if it does at all.
• Collaborate with stakeholders. This could include team members, a direct manager, or even a leadership mentor. Stakeholders can give input and feedback on SMART goals in terms of how a goal can a) address personal and professional growth and b) contribute to organizational strategy. This is especially pertinent for new or emerging leaders.

Break down goals. As in, break them into smaller and specific sub-goals to make them more manageable. This helps motivate learners and make the complex simple with multiple shorter deadlines. You can even do this by creating a development plan for the goal and assigning short courses to each milestone task within your learning platform.

5. Monitor and review progress

Don’t wait until the end of a goal’s lifecycle to monitor how effective the plan has been. You don’t know what’s outdated in your organization until you check its expiry date.

Leaders who continuously track progress can spot inefficiencies in real time, adjusting their approach to ensure ongoing relevance and impact. Real-time tracking also enables leaders to gather continuous feedback, which in turn helps them respond proactively to changing conditions and refine their goals to meet both personal and organizational needs.

When it comes to setting this up for a team member, this could look like:

• Regular check-ins. As we mentioned, one-on-ones are one of the most effective ways to assess performance and adjust any development plans. When it comes to goals, you can align the smaller milestones with specific one-on-ones to stay accountable for progress.
• Track metrics in real time. Dashboards offer visibility. Dashboards within a system like a performance learning management system (PLMS) show the exact steps being taken to achieve metrics, such as coursework and progress to completion.
• Combine quantitative and qualitative feedback. 360 feedback from other team leaders, their direct reports, subject matter experts (like mentors), and their supervisors provide context for quantitative metrics, and vice versa. Seek a holistic picture of performance.

Of course, there is no fixed point at which leadership development is done. Once one goal has been completed, it’s a chance to reset the baseline with another capability assessment and determine what the next goal to aim for is. That’s the beauty of capabilities—they capture the dynamism of performance.

5 leadership SMART goals examples 

While based on business strategy, SMART leadership goals don’t and shouldn’t be written in business jargon. (And if you’re doing capabilities right, they shouldn’t be jargon anyway.)

Like we said, the perfect SMART leadership goal marries personal development with business goals. Let’s look at 6 leadership SMART goals examples and break down what it is that makes them SMART, rather than just goals.

Improve coaching skills

Not only is being a good coach and mentor crucial for leaders, but it can also improve team collaboration, emotional intelligence, and conflict resolution skills, and create a positive work environment. That’s because when leaders are good coaches, employees feel both supported and more confident in their role, boosting morale, job satisfaction, and productivity.

So, as a SMART goal, coaching skills might look like:

“Improve coaching skills within six months, by scheduling training sessions and meetings to support employees in building their expertise in areas that need development.”

S – The specific goal is to improve coaching abilities.

M – Increased productivity and decreased time-to-proficiency is the measurable action.

A – Scheduling meetings and training with employees to work with them on their development areas is achievable.

R – Better coaching leads to more confidence in employees and increased employee performance.

T – The goal’s deadline is six months.

Taking constructive feedback

Giving constructive feedback is already a challenge in itself, but learning to take constructive criticism is difficult too. As a leader, it’s your job to provide feedback to your team members to help them in their personal development and performance. But it’s also important for leaders to receive constructive criticism.

As a SMART goal, it might look like:

“Learn to effectively take constructive criticism within the next six months by seeking regular feedback from employees and showing that you take feedback on board.”

S – The specific goal is to learn to take constructive feedback without getting defensive.

M – The measurable action is changing leadership behaviors in line with feedback received.

A – The goal can be achieved by listening to and seeking regular feedback from employees.

R – Positively taking and implementing feedback improves your abilities as a leader, which has a flow-on effect on the employees and team members you work with.

T – The goal’s deadline is six months.

Practice active listening

It might seem small, but active listening skills are crucial for enabling leaders to better understand the capabilities of their team members. Leaders need to understand what factors—personal or professional—may be impacting employees, the team’s productivity, and the business overall.

Written as a SMART goal, it could be:

“Improve active listening by scheduling regular team meetings and weekly one-on-ones to spend time catching up on employees’ concerns, as well as asking for feedback on improvements to your active listening skills, aiming for a satisfaction rate of 85%.”

S – The specific goal is to improve active listening.

M – The measurable action is receiving positive feedback with an 85% satisfaction rate.

A – This goal can be achieved through continued practice and the collection of feedback in regular, weekly meetings.

R – Improved active listening allows leaders to make better decisions for their team to increase performance and productivity.

T – The goal is ongoing, but feedback is taken and implemented weekly

Become more adaptable to change

Future thinking is essential for all aspects of the business, within leaders especially. Adaptable leaders are better able to anticipate and navigate challenges and create innovative solutions to achieve organizational transformation.

So the SMART goal example is:

“Become more adaptable to change by attending a course to learn how to analyze emerging trends, navigate challenges, and create solutions over the next six months.”

S – The specific goal is to become more adaptable to change.

M – The measurable action is completing a course in adaptability.

A – Completing the course and practicing the strategies and techniques learned are achievable actions.

R – Being more adaptable creates an agile workplace that is prepared for future change and can maintain a competitive advantage.

T – The goal’s deadline is six months.

Improve presentation skills

As leaders need to communicate strategy to their teams, being able to present effectively to them is essential for creating team cohesion and efficiency. In turn, this increases employee productivity and enhances business performance.

As a SMART goal, it might be written as:

“Improve presentation skills by developing meeting agendas to more effectively deliver information and cut down on meeting times by half an hour in the next two months.”

S – The specific goal is to improve presentation skills.

M – The measurable action is cutting down meeting times by 30 minutes.

A – Creating meeting agendas forces leaders to be more efficient with their words and time, making this goal achievable.

R – Better presentation and communication skills give employees clearer direction and more time to be productive.

T – The goal’s deadline is in two months.

The impacts of not setting SMART leadership goals

There are some instances where setting goals might be unnecessary, like if you’re just looking to challenge yourself without the pressure of delivering results, for instance. In general, not setting leadership SMART goals can mean:

• Development opportunities are unfocused, lacking a personal “why” for busy leaders to engage with them.
• Internal talent goes unnurtured, and your organization misses opportunities to save time and money by hiring future leaders from within.
• Results will be hard to measure and potentially intangible. Intangible results mean you can’t definitively prove behavioral change or business impacts.

There’s another hidden pitfall. Technology is the biggest enabler of goal management. Failing the right technology to support goal-setting, you rely on manual tracking methods. Think about what that might look like; a list jotted down in a notebook here, a verbal confirmation there. In either of those scenarios, you can’t align training content with goals. You can’t effectively track progress based on learning outcomes.

The right technology should automate the grunt work of doing the tasks (notifications, reminders, finding the right content, assigning mentors, etc.) so that leaders can focus on development and the organization can track the impact of performance.

Key takeaways

If you care about your organization, then you care about having the best crop of leaders flying the ship. But not all leaders are born, and even those that are made require ongoing maintenance to ensure their capabilities are in tip-top form to achieve business goals.

SMART goals make leadership development easier for everyone. You start with something inherently aligned with strategy—a capability assessment—to understand specific performance gaps. From there:

1. Define specific objectives
2. Establish metrics
3. Evaluate feasibility
4. Create an action plan aligning with business priorities
5. Monitor, review, and evolve.

And if you take anything away, let it be this: a SMART goal is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. It’s not two, three, or four of those things, but all five, and at all times.

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