Setting and Achieving Meaningful Goals: A Coaching Approach

One morning not long ago, I sat across from a CEO who felt overwhelmed. She was juggling dozens of priorities, yet still felt a gnawing worry that her most meaningful goals were slipping through the cracks. This scenario is common at the top. C-level leaders and senior executives face intense demands – quarterly targets, back-to-back meetings, crises – and in the whirlwind, long-term goals can blur or lose meaning. As an executive coach, I’ve seen even the most driven leaders struggle to set clear goals that truly matter and follow through on them.

The good news? It’s absolutely possible to break this cycle. In fact, in the world of executive coaching, defining clear and actionable goals is foundational for success . When leaders learn to set meaningful, well-crafted goals – and build the habits and support systems to achieve them – the results can be transformative. They find greater focus, lead with purpose, and drive stronger outcomes for themselves and their organizations.

In this article, I’ll share a seasoned coach’s approach to setting and achieving meaningful goals. You’ll get practical frameworks (like how to make goals SMART and beyond), insights from real coaching engagements with executives, supporting research from leadership experts, and strategies you can put into action immediately. My aim is to help you not just set goals, but set the right goals – the kind that light you up and propel your team and business forward – and then actually achieve them. Let’s dive in.

TL;DR;

•Connect Goals to Purpose: The most meaningful goals are grounded in your core values and broader mission. When your objectives resonate personally, you and your team stay far more motivated and resilient.

•Be Specific and Strategic: Define goals with crystal clarity. Frameworks like SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) help turn vague ideas into concrete targets . Ensure each goal is within your control and tied to a real business outcome – vague wishes won’t drive results .

•From Vision to Action: Break big goals into actionable steps and habits. Establish routines, milestones, and contingency plans (use “if–then” planning) to stay on track when obstacles arise . Don’t just set it and forget it – review progress regularly and adjust as needed.

•Accountability Is Power: Create a structure to hold yourself accountable – whether through a coach, mentor, or accountability partner. Simply telling someone about your goal makes you 65% more likely to achieve it, and with regular check-ins this can jump to 95% . Outside perspective and support dramatically boost follow-through.

•Align and Cascade Goals: Effective leaders align personal goals with organizational priorities. When your growth goals link to your company’s mission, it energizes your team and strengthens execution . Shared goals can even help build a coaching culture of continuous improvement, where everyone is striving toward common objectives .

1. Start with Purpose: Why This Goal Matters

In executive coaching, one of the first questions I ask a client is: “Why does this goal matter to you?”  It’s easy to set goals based on what we think we should do – increase revenue by X%, launch a new project, improve a skill because someone suggested it – but unless the goal resonates on a personal level, it’s hard to sustain momentum. Meaning fuels commitment. As the World Economic Forum notes, the best leaders “lead with authenticity and purpose” by staying true to their values as a North Star . In other words, your goals should connect with what you truly care about as a leader.

Take a moment to reflect on your top goals right now. Can you clearly articulate why each goal is important? For example, a VP of Engineering I coached once set a goal to “implement a new project management tool.” When pressed on why, it turned out her deeper aim was to foster transparency and trust in her team. The tool was just a means to an end. By refocusing the goal around her purpose – building trust through better clarity – she found renewed motivation and got her team’s buy-in more easily. The goal became personally meaningful, not just another task.

Research backs up the power of purpose-driven goals. One leadership study found that strong leaders endure challenges by remaining true to their values and using them as guiding lights . Similarly, in my experience coaching C-suite leaders, the goals that pack the biggest punch are those tied to a leader’s core values or to a vision that inspires them. For one CEO client, that meant shifting a dry goal like “increase market share 5%” into “win in our market while building an ethical, people-first culture” – a theme that spoke to his values of integrity and team empowerment. He still tracked the numbers, but the meaning behind the goal was his real motivator on tough days.

Meaningful goals also inspire those around you. When your team sees that your objectives stem from a clear sense of purpose, it creates a shared sense of mission. Tandem Coaching’s own leadership development insights note that well-defined goals can rally people behind a common purpose . Leaders who communicate the “why” behind the goal ignite higher engagement – employees understand the significance and are more willing to go the extra mile to achieve it.

Try this: Before setting or finalizing any major goal, ask yourself (and even journal): “Why does this goal matter to me, to my team, and to our organization?” Keep drilling down until you hit an answer that feels inspiring – one that gives you that “Yes, this is worth it” feeling. If you struggle to find a compelling why, that might be a sign to refine or even rethink the goal. When your goals align with a deeper purpose, you’ll have a wellspring of energy to draw on when challenges inevitably arise.

Lastly, ensure your goals align upward and outward. An executive’s personal development goal should ideally reinforce their company’s broader vision or values. Coaches often help leaders align personal values with professional responsibilities as they set goals, so there’s consistency between what drives you and what your organization needs . For example, if innovation is a company value and also a personal passion of yours, a goal to “launch three groundbreaking product ideas next year” hits the sweet spot. It’s personally exciting and advances a core business priority. When purpose, personal values, and business strategy line up, you’ve got a goal that is built on bedrock.

Insight: Don’t skip the “soft stuff” here. It might feel touchy-feely to talk about purpose and values before diving into action plans, especially for hard-charging executives. But this step is what separates empty goals from meaningful ones. As one Fortune 500 CEO told me after revisiting her goals through this lens: “Once I connected the goal to what I actually care about, it stopped feeling like a chore and started feeling like a mission.” That’s the mindset you want to cultivate from the outset.

2. Define the Goal Clearly: Make It Specific and Measurable

Once you’ve pinpointed a meaningful goal, the next step is nailing down the specifics. A goal like “improve customer experience” or “be a better leader” is a decent vision, but it’s not actionable on its own. Clarity is key. In coaching sessions with executives, I often say: If you can’t picture exactly what success looks like, neither can your team. Vagueness is the enemy of execution.

The classic framework many of us know and love (for good reason) is SMART goals – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound . Let’s unpack that briefly in a leadership context:

•Specific: Define the goal in concrete terms. What exactly are you trying to achieve? A specific goal might be, “Increase Q4 customer satisfaction scores from 8.0 to 9.0,” instead of just “improve customer satisfaction.” It pinpoints what improvement means. The who/what/where should be clear enough that someone else could almost step into your shoes and know the target. In coaching, I sometimes encourage leaders to use vivid language or even mental imagery – e.g. “By year-end, I want to be able to say our team doubled our product launch rate from last year”. Specificity sharpens your focus .

•Measurable: Quantify it or define indicators of success. If it’s not a number, figure out how you’ll know you’ve achieved it. This could be a KPI, a before-and-after metric, or even qualitative feedback. One director I worked with set a goal to “become a more effective communicator.” We made it measurable by deciding we’d survey her team for improvement in clarity and run meetings 10 minutes shorter on average (a sign of concise communication). Hard numbers or tangible milestones let you track progress and stay motivated. After all, as the saying goes, “What gets measured, gets managed.”

•Achievable: Aim high but keep it realistic given your resources and constraints. A goal should stretch you, not break you. If it feels impossible, you’ll give up; if it’s too easy, it won’t inspire growth. In coaching, we test goals by asking “Is this challenging and feasible?” Sometimes an executive’s initial goal needs scaling – for instance, turning “expand to 5 new markets in six months” into “pilot expansion in 2 new markets in six months,” given budget limits. Ambitious but feasible is the sweet spot .

•Relevant: Ensure the goal ties to your broader business priorities or development needs. A relevant goal answers the question, “How does this help the bigger picture?” For a leader, relevance might mean aligning with strategic objectives (e.g. a goal to streamline operations is relevant if efficiency is a company mandate this year). It also means the goal is within your area of influence. If you set a goal that actually falls in someone else’s domain, you may frustrate yourself. Focus on what you and your team can impact directly. This is similar to what in coaching we call a “well-formed outcome” – the outcome has to be within the person’s control to a large degree . For example, “Get 1,000 new customers” isn’t entirely in your control (market conditions, competitors, etc. play a role), but “Launch a referral program to attract 1,000 new customers” is more within your influence because it focuses on the actions you will take.

•Time-bound: Set a clear deadline or timeframe. A goal without a time frame is just an open-ended dream. Leadership goals can be quarterly, yearly, or tied to specific events (e.g. “by our annual retreat in September, X will be completed”). Deadlines create urgency and accountability . They also help you reverse-engineer milestones (more on that in the next section). One caution: make sure the timeline is realistic – if it’s too short, you set yourself up for stress and failure; if it’s too far out, procrastination can creep in. Find a motivating but sensible timeline, and maybe even break the goal into sub-goals with their own dates.

Let me illustrate how clarity changes a goal. I coached a VP of Sales who initially set a goal to “boost our sales performance.” Noble aim, but very fuzzy. Through coaching, we refined this into a SMART goal: “Increase our region’s quarterly sales by 15% by the end of FY2025, by expanding into two new market segments and improving conversion rates on leads (from 20% to 30%) via a new training program, measured monthly.” Now that’s a mouthful, but notice how specific it is – it spells out how (expand segments, improve conversions via training), how much (15% growth, conversion from 20→30%), and by when (end of FY2025 with monthly checkpoints). The VP later told me that once this was defined, he could communicate it to his directors and they all knew exactly what the target was and what to focus on. It turned an abstract wish into a concrete mission.

Another framework some executives find helpful is picturing the finish line. Imagine it’s the end of the quarter or year and you’re reporting success – what did you accomplish? What does it look and feel like? One CTO I worked with visualized his goal as, “It’s December 31st, and our customer churn rate is down to 3%. We’re sitting in a meeting reviewing the year, and I’m pointing to the data showing a 50% reduction in churn since June.” That picture clarified his goal (reduce churn from ~6% to 3% in six months) and made it very real. He even printed a dummy chart and put it on his wall as a daily reminder. Find a way to define success so concretely that it’s almost tangible.

Pro tip: Write your goal down. Yes, literally write it down in a place you’ll see often – your notebook, a Post-it on your monitor, or a note in your phone. Written goals feel more formal and studies have shown that simply writing down a goal increases the likelihood of achieving it. In one famous (and widely cited) study, people who wrote their goals and commitments were significantly more likely to follow through than those who only thought about them . It’s a small habit that reinforces clarity and commitment every day.

At this stage, you should have a meaningful, clearly defined goal that passes the SMART test. You know exactly what you’re aiming for, why it matters, and how you’ll measure it. For many executives I coach, reaching this level of clarity is a breakthrough in itself – it brings a sense of focus and relief. The fog is gone; the target is in sight. Now it’s time to map the journey toward that target.

3. From Plan to Execution: Make It Happen (Habits and Accountability)

Defining a great goal is critical, but a goal on paper isn’t enough – what matters is executing on it. As the old saying goes (often attributed to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry): “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” In my coaching practice, this is where the rubber meets the road. We turn that clear goal into a series of actions, checkpoints, and support mechanisms that virtually guarantee progress – even when life gets busy or obstacles appear.

Break it down: The first step is to break your big goal into smaller milestones or sub-goals. This creates a step-by-step path. For example, if your goal is to implement a new leadership development program company-wide by year-end, a milestone breakdown might be: Q1 – research and select the program framework; Q2 – pilot it with one department; Q3 – refine and get executive buy-in; Q4 – roll out to all departments. Now instead of one giant task looming over you, you have manageable phases. This makes large goals far less intimidating and helps you track progress incrementally. It also gives you opportunities to celebrate small wins along the way, which is great for morale (yours and your team’s).

Schedule the work: One practical tactic I often share with leaders is to block time on your calendar for goal-related work. Treat it like an important meeting with yourself. If your goal is truly a top priority, it deserves space on your schedule. For instance, a director aiming to write a strategic plan allocated 90 minutes every Wednesday morning as “strategy time” – phone off, door closed. By the end of the quarter, he had a completed draft, whereas previously this goal had languished while he attended everyone else’s meetings. It sounds simple, but if it’s not on your calendar, day-to-day urgencies will steal the time. Make appointments with your goal.

Anticipate obstacles – and plan for them: Even the best goals encounter roadblocks. A powerful technique from psychology (popularized by HBR author Heidi Grant) is “if–then” planning. This means deciding in advance how you’ll handle foreseeable challenges . Essentially, “If X happens, then I will do Y.” For example: “If I start procrastinating on writing the report, then I’ll switch to a smaller sub-task like outlining section 1.” Or, “If a client meeting gets scheduled during my Wednesday strategy block, then I’ll reschedule my block to Thursday 8am.” Studies show that people who use if–then plans are dramatically more likely to reach their goals – one meta-analysis found it can triple your success rate . Why? Because you’ve pre-loaded your decision-making. When the obstacle arises, you don’t waste energy deciding what to do; you execute the contingency you already prepared. In coaching, I often role-play scenarios with leaders: “What could derail you? Let’s plan for it.” They find that just acknowledging potential pitfalls (like a budget cut, a dip in motivation, a key team member leaving) and brainstorming responses makes them feel more confident and in control. It’s like having a personal risk management strategy for your goal.

Build habits and routines: Achieving big goals usually requires changing your behavior in some way – building new habits or skills. Identify the key habits that will drive your goal forward, and practice them consistently. For instance, if your goal is to improve team communication (a bit broad, but say you specified it as “hold weekly feedback sessions with each team member”), the habit might be scheduling and conducting those 1:1 feedback meetings every Friday. Put recurring reminders in place. Or if the goal is to become more strategic and less reactive, a habit could be a 15-minute reflection at the end of each day to assess if you focused on strategic work. One executive I know set a rule to start every morning by tackling a top-priority task before opening email – a habit to ensure proactive progress on goals. These little routines, done consistently, create momentum. As author James Clear writes, “You do not rise to the level of your goals; you fall to the level of your systems.” Your daily systems and habits are what carry you to the finish line.

Track and adapt: Regularly tracking your progress is vital. In coaching sessions, we often review what progress has been made on the goals since the last meeting – it creates a natural accountability and flags issues early. You can do this yourself by setting periodic check-ins. Maybe every Friday afternoon you do a brief review: What did I do this week toward my goal? What’s planned for next week? If you’re a visual person, use a simple spreadsheet or project management tool to log milestones achieved. Seeing a percentage complete bar go from 20% to 40% to 60% can be very motivating. And if you notice you’re off track, don’t panic – use it as feedback. Perhaps the goal needs a course correction or your approach needs tweaking. Agile leaders treat goal execution as a learning process: set hypothesis (plan), execute, review outcomes, adjust. Flexibility is key. As Dwight D. Eisenhower famously said, “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” The act of planning prepares you, but you must be willing to adjust the plan when reality unfolds. Keep the goal fixed, but be fluid in your methods.

A quick story on adaptability: I worked with a COO who had a goal to reduce average product delivery time by 30%. Halfway through the year, they were nowhere near on target. In our coaching session, we discovered one reason – they were measuring the wrong thing and chasing a suboptimal process change. We reframed the approach (focused on a different bottleneck metric) and she communicated the pivot to her team. They still hit a 25% reduction by year-end, which was a win considering the mid-course correction. The lesson is that monitoring progress and being willing to pivot can rescue a goal from failure. Don’t stubbornly stick to a failing game plan. Use your data and intuition to recalibrate as needed.

Leverage accountability: Perhaps the biggest differentiator I see between goals that get achieved and those that languish is accountability. It’s incredibly hard to stay consistently self-motivated in a vacuum – we all get distracted or discouraged. That’s where having someone (or something) to answer to can make all the difference. This could be a formal structure, like a coach (I might be biased, but many of my clients swear by coaching for this reason), or it could be an informal accountability partner such as a colleague or friend. There’s compelling evidence behind this: a study by the ASTD found that if you commit to someone else about your goal, your chance of success jumps to 65%, and if you schedule ongoing check-ins with that person, it spikes to 95% . Essentially, almost a sure thing! Think about that – by simply involving another person to hold you accountable, you tilt the odds massively in your favor.

How can you apply this? One way is to tell a trusted colleague or mentor about your goal and ask them to check in periodically. Another is to form a small mastermind group – I know VPs who team up and have a 30-minute call each month to report progress on their respective goals. Because none of them wants to be the one who always says “I made no progress,” they find time to move things forward. If you have an executive coach, use them! In our sessions, I will explicitly ask, “What will you accomplish on this goal by the next time we meet?” That gentle pressure and knowing someone will ask can light a fire under you on the tough days.

Accountability can also be built with your team. Don’t keep your leadership goals secret; share relevant goals with your team and even invite them to hold you to it. For example, if your goal is to improve your delegation skills (to empower your team more), you can tell your team, “This is something I’m working on – if you notice me micromanaging or not delegating when I could, please call me out (respectfully).” It sounds a bit vulnerable, but it actually builds trust, and now you have several people helping keep you honest. One director did this and even created a silly “Delegation Jar” – each time he grabbed back a task he had delegated, his team would jokingly “fine” him $5 for the jar. It added humor and accountability to his goal, and it worked; he got much better at letting go, and the team enjoyed the process (they eventually used the jar money to have a pizza lunch together).

In sum, execution is a discipline. It’s about translating intention into action consistently. By breaking the goal down, scheduling time for it, planning for obstacles, building supportive habits, and creating accountability, you set up an environment where progress is the default. When you slip (it happens), these structures will help catch you and get you back on track. Achieving meaningful goals isn’t about willpower alone; it’s about engineering your routine and surroundings to make success more likely than not.

4. Align Goals with Your Team and Organization: The Broader Impact

No leader operates in a vacuum. Your personal leadership goals exist in a larger context: your team’s goals and your organization’s strategy. The best executives not only set goals for themselves, they ensure those goals are aligned and cascaded through the ranks. This creates synergy – your growth propels the business, and the business supports your growth. It also prevents the common pitfall of well-intentioned leadership initiatives fizzling out because they were disconnected from what the company actually needed.

Start by asking: How does my goal intersect with the organization’s objectives? If you’re a VP or director, ideally one of your meaningful goals is directly linked to a key company OKR or strategic priority. For example, if the company’s big objective this year is expanding in Asia, and you lead a product team, a relevant personal goal might be “Develop three features specifically requested by Asian market clients by Q3.” That ladders up to the company aim. When you achieve your goal, the company wins too. This alignment not only makes your goal more impactful, it often secures more support and resources – because it’s clearly in service of the business’s success.

Moreover, aligning goals sets a powerful example. Leaders’ goals send a signal about what’s important. If you’re emphasizing customer-centric improvements in your goals, your team gets the message that customer experience matters. In fact, research by McKinsey found that employees are most motivated when their individual goals include a mix of personal and team objectives and are clearly linked to company goals . People want to see the through-line from their daily tasks to the organization’s mission. By aligning your goals and then communicating that alignment, you help your team connect the dots with their own goals.

Communication is key here. Don’t keep your leadership goals private; share appropriate aspects with your team and even your boss. This isn’t boasting – it’s involving stakeholders in your journey and demonstrating strategic alignment. For instance, a department head I coached set a goal to “Improve cross-department collaboration by establishing quarterly joint planning sessions with Marketing and Sales.” She informed her peers and her own team about this goal. Soon, other departments began mirroring it, scheduling their own joint sessions. Her goal had a ripple effect, essentially cascading a new practice through the organization. It started with her personal objective, but because it filled an organizational need (silos were a known problem), it gained traction broadly. By year’s end, multiple teams reported significantly better collaboration, a win that went beyond any single person.

Another aspect of alignment is making sure your team’s goals are aligned with yours. As an executive, your personal goal often requires coordinated effort from your team. If my goal is to reduce customer churn  by 20%, I need my customer success managers, my product folks, maybe even marketing, to have sub-goals that contribute (like “increase proactive outreach” or “add features to address top 3 user complaints”). In leadership development circles, we talk about creating a “line of sight” – every team member should see how their goals connect upward to the broader objectives. This doesn’t mean you impose your personal goals on everyone, but rather you synchronize. It often involves conversation: “Here’s my goal for this quarter; let’s discuss how each of your goals can support it and vice versa.” When done well, this yields a set of complementary goals at different levels, all rowing in the same direction.

Building this kind of alignment can significantly boost team performance and engagement. When people share a common purpose, it fosters unity. Tandem Coaching highlights that effective goal-setting can build culture, noting that leadership goals tend to cascade through the organization and even shape the culture . I’ve seen teams where a leader’s development goal (say, to practice more coaching-style management) led to the team members setting their own growth goals, and soon the whole team had a mini “growth culture” going, each person working on something and discussing progress in staff meetings. That is essentially creating a coaching culture on a small scale – and it can scale company-wide.

Speaking of coaching culture, let’s touch on that. Some organizations embrace goal-setting and development so thoroughly that it becomes part of their DNA – a true coaching culture. In such an environment, managers coach their employees, peers support each other’s growth, and everyone is encouraged to have development goals, not just performance targets. The impact of this is powerful: it creates a continuous learning environment where feedback and personal development are valued and normal . According to an insight from Tandem Coaching’s research, instilling a coaching culture can lead to higher employee engagement and retention and even give the company a competitive edge . Why? Because employees feel invested in; they’re setting goals, growing, and seeing progress, which is deeply fulfilling and builds loyalty.

As an executive, you have the ability to model and spark this culture. By actively working on your own goals and encouraging your team to do the same, you normalize self-improvement and accountability. You might implement team rituals like quarterly development goal reviews, or start team meetings by briefly sharing one success and one lesson learned in your goal progress. These practices signal that growth is a priority and that it’s safe to strive, fail, and learn.

Let’s illustrate alignment with a quick composite example: Imagine you’re a COO with a meaningful goal to “create a more agile, innovative organization” because you value adaptability and see it as crucial for the company’s future. You make it specific: e.g. “By Q4, launch a pilot incubator program that enables employees in any department to spend 10% time on new innovative projects, yielding at least 3 viable new product ideas.” Now you align this: you talk with your HR and R&D heads to ensure their goals support this incubator (HR might have a goal to develop the policy and process for 10% time, R&D might set a goal to mentor incubator teams). You announce the initiative to all departments, tying it to the company’s mission of innovation. Managers, in turn, encourage their staff who participate to set goals for what they want to create. Over the year, not only do you hit the objective (three new product ideas generated), but you notice a cultural shift – employees are energized and thinking creatively beyond their daily duties. This goal, aligned and cascaded well, didn’t just check a box; it changed mindsets and advanced the company’s innovation agenda.

In aligning goals, one more point: gain buy-in from your superiors for your major goals. This might seem obvious, but I’ve coached some leaders who were chasing goals their CEO or board didn’t actually prioritize, which led to friction. Make sure your boss knows what you’re focusing on and why. Ideally, they agree that it’s important. If they don’t, that’s a red flag – better to clarify and adjust early than to spend a year on something and find out it wasn’t what leadership above you wanted. The best scenario is when your boss is your ally in your goal (maybe even your accountability partner of sorts). Plus, discussing your goals with higher-ups shows proactiveness and strategic thinking, which most executives appreciate.

To sum up, aligning your meaningful goals with those of your team and company amplifies the impact. It ensures you’re not climbing a ladder that’s leaning against the wrong wall. Instead, you’re all climbing together, supporting each other. Your personal success becomes a win for the organization and vice versa. It also distributes the effort – achieving a bold goal is easier when everyone is contributing to it in their own role. And emotionally, it transforms a lone journey into a collective mission, which can be far more rewarding.

When you look at high-performing organizations, you’ll notice this alignment everywhere: individual, team, and corporate goals mirroring and reinforcing each other. It creates a sense of unity and clarity. By striving for this in your sphere of influence, you elevate not just yourself but those around you. That’s meaningful leadership in action.

5. Leverage Coaching and Outside Perspective: You Don’t Have to Go It Alone

Even with all these strategies – purpose, clarity, planning, accountability, alignment – the journey to big goals can be challenging. Top athletes have coaches and trainers; top executives can benefit from similar support. As a seasoned executive coach, I might be biased, but I’ve witnessed the difference an outside perspective can make in turning goals from ideas into reality.

Why involve an executive coach or mentor? For one, a coach serves as a dedicated partner in your growth. Unlike colleagues or even well-meaning friends, a professional coach’s sole agenda is to help you succeed in your goals. They bring structured conversations, tools, and expertise to keep you moving forward. For example, in our coaching sessions at Tandem, the process begins with goal setting – collaboratively identifying and sharpening your objectives – and then we build a tailored development plan around those goals . It’s not one-size-fits-all; it’s bespoke to your context. An executive coach can help you see blind spots, challenge your assumptions (“Are you sure this target is ambitious enough?”), and hold you accountable with a friendly but firm nudge each time you meet.

I recall a CFO client who initially resisted the idea of coaching. He was skeptical it would add anything beyond what his own discipline could do. After the first few sessions, he remarked how helpful it was to have “a mirror and a map” – a mirror in that I reflected patterns I observed (like how often he got pulled into minutiae, derailing his strategic goals), and a map in that I helped outline next steps and options when he felt stuck. Over a year, he achieved more of his professional development goals than he had in the previous five years on his own. The structure and outside insight made the difference. Sometimes, we simply need someone to ask us the tough questions or to brainstorm solutions when we hit a wall.

Mentors can play a similar role in a less formal capacity. A mentor (say a more experienced executive in your industry) might provide guidance, share how they achieved similar goals, and open doors or resources for you. The key is to actively seek their input: “I’m working toward X goal; I value your experience – do you have any advice or would you be willing to be a sounding board as I progress?” Most people are happy to help, especially when you show initiative.

There’s also the option of peer coaching – pairing up with a fellow executive (perhaps in a different department or even at another company) to regularly discuss and support each other’s goals. I know two COOs at different firms who have a monthly lunch to trade notes on their personal objectives and hold each other accountable – one might say, “Next time we meet I’ll have finished my ops cost reduction proposal,” and the other will check in on it. It’s informal, free, and effective because they respect each other and neither wants to disappoint the other.

Another benefit of outside perspective is expertise and resources. A leadership development coach or program often comes with proven frameworks, assessments, and tools. For instance, Tandem Coaching’s leadership development program uses 360-degree feedback and personality assessments to inform goal-setting – sometimes data from colleagues can illuminate a growth area you weren’t fully aware of, making your goals more targeted . Coaches can also introduce models (like situational leadership, delegation frameworks, communication techniques) that accelerate your progress. Essentially, they can shorten the learning curve by providing the right knowledge at the right time, rather than you reinventing the wheel.

Perhaps one of the biggest values of coaching or external support is mental and emotional resilience. Pursuing big goals is as much a mental game as a tactical one. There will be moments of doubt, fatigue, or frustration. A coach is there to remind you of your why, to celebrate your wins (sometimes we downplay our progress and need someone to say “Hey, look how far you’ve come!”), and to help you navigate the emotional ups and downs. Leadership can be lonely; having a confidant in a coach or mentor provides a safe space to process challenges confidentially. It’s like having a co-pilot in the often turbulent flight toward your goal – you’re still the one flying the plane, but you’ve got someone checking the gauges and helping plot the course through stormy weather.

Let me share a concrete example. A director of operations I worked with had a goal to improve her executive presence and influence in the company (so she could advance to VP). That’s a somewhat abstract goal, and she wasn’t sure where to start. Through coaching, we got specific (she decided to focus on leading more effective meetings and speaking up more confidently in exec discussions). We then role-played scenarios, refined her messaging, and I gave her honest feedback on her communication style – something her subordinates wouldn’t likely do. I also kept her accountable: each session, we’d review how the last leadership meeting went and what she tried differently. Over six months, her peers and bosses started noticing a change – she was more poised, concise, and assertive. She achieved her goal (and did get that VP promotion the next year). She later told me that having a coach was like having a “personal trainer for leadership skills.” On her own, she admitted, she might have procrastinated or gotten discouraged by a few early missteps, but the coaching process kept her steadily improving.

For those who may not have access to a professional coach, consider this: even books, courses, and articles by experts can serve as virtual mentors. There’s a wealth of leadership literature (think HBR articles, McKinsey reports, ICF case studies) – leverage it. For example, if your goal is to become a better negotiator, reading a book on negotiation and practicing the techniques with a colleague can be your form of “coaching.” The key is that you’re seeking outside input to enrich your approach, rather than operating in an echo chamber of your own ideas.

I also want to touch on the value of feedback as part of outside perspective. Solicit feedback regularly from those around you regarding your goal. If your goal is observable (like a behavior change), ask trusted colleagues, “Hey, I’m working on X – how do you think I’m doing? Any suggestions?” This accomplishes two things: it keeps you on your toes (since you know people are watching your progress), and it provides insights for improvement. In fact, in a coaching culture, continuous feedback is the norm – it’s how everyone helps each other get better. Creating a little personal feedback loop can mimic that environment. It might feel uncomfortable, but high-performing leaders crave constructive feedback because they know that’s how they grow.

Finally, let’s address a subtle point: engaging help is not a weakness – it’s a performance multiplier. Sometimes executives resist outside help due to pride or the feeling they should handle everything themselves. But think of it this way: the very act of seeking coaching or mentorship is a sign of commitment to excellence. It shows you’re serious about your goals. Many CEOs and senior leaders are very public about having executive coaches. They see it as part of their toolkit, just like having a CFO to manage finances or a personal trainer to keep fit. You are the chief strategist of your own development; utilizing a coach or mentor is a strategic decision to invest in your effectiveness.

At Tandem Coaching, we often tell prospective clients: the value of coaching is in the outcomes it enables. It could be accelerating achievement of a goal, making better decisions, growing into a higher role, or simply reducing stress while doing all of the above. One leader described coaching as the difference between wandering in a forest alone versus having a guide with a compass – you still do the hiking, but you don’t waste time getting lost. If you feel like an outside guide could help you reach your destination faster or with more confidence, don’t hesitate to seek one out. It could be the best investment you make in your leadership journey.

Conclusion

Setting and achieving meaningful goals is both an art and a science – and it’s one of the most worthwhile skills a leader can develop. We’ve covered a lot of ground: starting with a compelling purpose behind your goal, defining it with crystal clarity, breaking it into actions and habits, holding yourself (and others) accountable, aligning it with the bigger picture, and leveraging support along the way. These are the practices I’ve seen truly transform leaders’ effectiveness over my coaching career. They may sound straightforward on paper, but the magic is in consistently applying them in the real-world chaos of executive life.

Before you rush to your next task, take a moment of self-reflection. Think about one significant goal you have (or want to set) for yourself as a leader. Ask: Is it deeply meaningful to me? Is it specific and measurable? Do I have a concrete plan and routine to pursue it? Who can help keep me accountable? How does it help those around me? Jot down your answers. This small exercise could be the spark that turns a vague ambition into an actionable plan.

Remember that meaningful goals often require courage. Courage to choose a direction, courage to communicate it, courage to stay the course when obstacles emerge, and sometimes courage to adjust it. Leadership is about painting a vision of a better future – and goals are the brushstrokes that make that vision real. Don’t shy away from setting bold goals that excite and even scare you a little. Those are usually the ones worth pursuing, the ones that lead to growth.

If you find yourself struggling at any point, consider bringing in an outside perspective. There’s no prize for lone-wolfing it in the executive world. Engaging a mentor or coach can provide clarity and momentum. Even a single conversation with someone who has walked a similar path can re-energize you and reveal a solution you hadn’t considered. Many of the most successful leaders quietly credit their coaches or mentors for helping them reach their mountaintops. It’s not a sign of weakness – it’s a performance strategy.

As you move forward, I encourage you to also foster this goal-setting and goal-achieving mindset in your team. Share what you’ve learned. Encourage your high-potentials to set development goals, and maybe even coach them a bit (or support them in getting coaching). When your team starts setting meaningful goals and knocking them out of the park, you’re creating a powerful domino effect that can elevate your entire organization. In the end, a leader’s legacy is often the goals they helped others achieve.

I’ll leave you with this thought: every significant improvement or innovation in your career – and in your company – likely started as a goal. Someone had to articulate it and commit to making it happen. Be that person for yourself and for your organization. Set the goal, make it meaningful, and then do the rewarding work of achieving it. Your future self, and your future team, will thank you.

If you’re serious about accelerating your growth and want a partner in success, consider investing in yourself through executive coaching or a leadership development program. Sometimes an outside guide can turn years into months on the road to your aspirations. At Tandem Coaching, for instance, our mission is to “make leadership growth simple and impactful” and help leaders set and achieve the right goals for lasting change . Whether through Tandem or another avenue, give yourself the gift of perspective and support. You don’t have to climb the mountain alone – what matters is that you reach the summit of your meaningful goals and enjoy the journey along the way.

Good luck, and go conquer those goals!