In the Beginning...Thoughts for Leading with Intention in 2024

As 2024 is gracefully making its way into our realm of reality, we are being gifted with another opportunity to evaluate how we led ourselves and others in 2023. For this cause, we will not be discussing New Year’s resolutions, rather, the value of self-evaluation to enhance our professional and personal outcomes and lead with intention in the coming year.

Too many times we cross over from one year to the next, showing up the exact same way as we did the year before. To add a level of freshness to our processes we set new workplace goals each year (though some are the same). My question is are we setting goals as a practice of habit or corporate expectations or are we sitting down and evaluating how we performed internally and externally, then choosing objectives that offer the greatest benefit to ourselves and others? As I continue to evaluate my professional and personal outcomes, I have learned that it takes more than putting goals on a piece of paper (computer, iPad, Notes, etc.) to be successful. It requires me to do what I hated to do in retail, which was take an end of year inventory (if you have ever worked a retail job, you know what I mean). Nonetheless, that tedious exercise was necessary because it positioned leadership to gain a deeper understanding of what was happening in the business and use that information to make informed decisions about how to move forward the following year. Like retail stores, if we want to gain the best results in our career, it will require us to take a personal inventory of our performance so we are positioned to make the decisions neccessary to lead with intention and increase our results in 2024.

 In a moment I will provide you with 10 questions for reflection to take a personal inventory of your results at the end of this year or beginning of 2024. Before you begin, I encourage you to do the following:

• Spend the time needed to reflect and analyze your behaviors before responding (think holism)

• Answer honestly (this is about observations, not victimizing or vilifying yourself)

• There is no rating scale by design (it is not about choosing a number and justifying your choice, rather, thinking about and evaluating your performance)

• Use your personal learning style to determine how you will capture and remember your responses

With that information, let’s get started:

1. Based on your 2023 achievements, how well did you do physically and emotionally perform? (i.e., achieved all my goals, but my hair turned grey, achieved all my goals, and had work and life balance, etc.). What factors contributed to your response?

2. Focusing on your workplace achievements, what outcomes make you proud? Cause you concern?

3. What contributions did you make that directly impacted the performance of your direct reports? Your peers? Your leader? Would they agree or disagree? How so?

4. Thinking about your overall behaviors, how well did you respond to stressful situations at work? Why do you believe you responded that way?

5. As it relates to conflict, how did you address crucial issues with your direct reports? Peers? Leader? What were the results for you? Them?

6. How often did you use personal time set aside for yourself, family, or friends to work instead? What was your rationale and what was the impact of the tradeoff?

7. What risks did you take to step outside your comfort zone to propel your career? If none, why not?

8. How innovative were you? Your direct reports? What supported or distracted you and your team’s ability to innovate (within your control)?

9. How “psychology safe” did you feel to express your viewpoints with your team? Peers? Leaders? How “psychologically safe” do you believe your team felt to express their viewpoints with you? Others? What indicators support your response?

10. Do you honestly value each direct report on your team? Your peers? Your leader? If you do, how did you demonstrate it? If not, what is getting in the way and why?

These are great questions to conduct a personal inventory of your 2023 performance and gain the awareness needed to lead with intention in 2024. After completing your inventory, the last steps will be to: 

• Review and reflect on all your responses as a whole and look for trends, Aha’s, and insights that connect your overall behaviors and outcomes in 2023

• Use the results as a “guiding post” to set intentional leadership goals for 2024

• Make a clear connection to how achieving your goals will benefit you, your team, and organization

I hope you take the time to self-evaluate before setting your 2024 goals. Doing so will position you to lead with intention and obtain the results you desire in the workplace.

Sabrina Smith is the Founder & CEO of PROGENY1, LLC, a leadership development, training, and coaching company. If you are looking for actionable insights to develop professionally and personally, subscribe to our Newsletter. Send us an email and in the subject line write –Subscribe and your email address will be added to our contact list, and yes, it is free! You will not receive more than four articles per month.

If you want to learn how PROGENY1, LLC can partner with you or your organization to propel your performance results, email us at: Sabrina@Progeny1.Training.