Five Big Mistakes Leaders Make When Setting Team Goals

August 23, 2022

Like most leaders, you have frothy moments of frustration when your team underperforms.

It’s never been more critical for your team to crush performance goals. It’s also never been more challenging.

Many teams feel disoriented, making missing targets or objectives more likely.

Speaking of targets and objectives, how do you even know what to aim for in a milieu as confusing as the environment you lead in right now?

These are great questions; fortunately, there are better answers than what you might be telling yourself.

The solution for many of these issues is a framework I outline in depth in my RECLAIM MOMENTUM {LIVE} KEYNOTE.

Check it out here.

After leading teams for nearly three decades, here are five big mistakes (I have personally made and suggest you avoid) - when setting goals with your team.

1. You don’t have a clearly owned core purpose, vision, and set of values

Your core purpose, vision, and values are the rudder of your system to decide how and in what direction your team runs when you are not around.

Most organizations have advanced to throw up a mission statement and set of values on the wall, but it usually doesn’t make it into the bones of their people.

From my observations, what’s on the wall often isn’t owned down the hall.

The same with core values. So many leaders take time to define the core values they want, but often there’s a big gap between the values they want and those they have. In addition, many team members couldn’t name more than one core value on their campus web page.

So, how can you tell if your team owns your core purpose, vision, and cultural values?

Here’s a little test: During your next team meeting, ask your team if they can articulate them without cheating.

You know there’s work to do if they can't, but don’t get discouraged. 95% of the time I conduct this exercise with campus executive teams, they can’t deliver a 100% accurate response either.

When core purpose, vision, and values aren’t owned or shared, your team will spin in a myriad of directions.

If you would like to drill deeper here, I invite you to download the 5 Evidence-Based Practices to Reclaim More Team Engagement with Less Effort.

You can find this valuable resource to help in this regard here.

2. You lack a clear strategy to execute

Core purpose, vision, and values should have a long shelf-life, but without execution, they are more like fortune cookies.

Strategy is how you plan to accomplish your vision.

For every campus, COVID threw a wrench (or nuclear bomb) into strategy. Unfortunately, a return to your old strategy likely won’t work.

As much as you can’t have certainty in this season, it’s essential to have clarity.

Part of my strategy before the pandemic was consulting and speaking in person. When COVID shut down travel, my team and I pivoted (literally overnight) to deliver all our workshops and coaching fully in a 100% digital environment.

Our mission (To Optimize Higher Team Performance) stayed the same.

Our strategy changed.

In fact, quick pivots on strategy preserve the mission in times of rapid change.

If you haven’t clarified your strategy recently (even if it’s a strategy for the next 30 days), I encourage you to pull your team together and refine it.

No team can own what it doesn’t understand.

Change is inevitable. Irrelevance isn’t.

But the reality is that far too many campuses aren’t shifting quickly enough.

That’s why I’m on tour with the RECLAIM MOMENTUM {LIVE} Keynote. It’s a value-packed event where we’ll dissect the 6 Lead Measures of Building Irresistible Campus Culture and get equipped with a framework to lead successful change with less resistance.

3. You lack a clear goal

Once you decide how to accomplish your vision, you must decide to what measure.

Many leaders naturally answer that question by telling their teams that they want ‘more’—more enrollment, grants, outreach, technology, and campus visits.

Having more as a goal demotivates your team because you’ll never hit it.

You can’t hit more.

Eventually, your team feels like the kid who brings home a straight A report card, only to have the parent say, “Why not A+?”

This type of environment is the perfect habitat for quitters.

So, define it. What does more look like?

One person? 100 people? 2% growth? 20% growth? 200% growth?

And then when you hit it, celebrate it like a boss!

4. You’re focused on the lag, not lead measures

Many leaders I meet spend loads of time pouring over measures they have no control over. These are lag measures.

Lag measures include last week’s enrollment, the previous month’s revenue, yesterday’s post impressions, and last year’s growth.

Many leaders get the numbers on Monday, grimace that they’re not acceptable, and demand their teams to do better.

“Close the gap, or your job might disappear” was a heated declaration that I heard flung across the table during a strategic retreat last year by a campus CEO.

The problem is that while lag measures are great for telling you how your organization has performed, you can’t change them.

It’s historical data.

A better option is to look at the things you CAN control that ultimately impact the lag measures. We call these your lead measure.

Lead measures might include focusing on the number of first-time campus visits instead of enrollment or turning first-time visitors into second-time visitors.

Your team will never crush their goals if they’re focused on what they can’t change instead of what they can change.

5. You don’t treat your people as owners

Of all the characteristics of great leaders, this is the one that’s the hardest but also gives the most significant return if you learn to do it well.

When a team member misses a goal, leaders utter two phrases that create a complete lack of ownership.

Repeat after me… “That’s okay.”

No, it’s not ok that they missed the deadline and the rest of the team didn’t. Stop acting like it is.

The other sounds like this _________ (silence)

Many leaders don’t say a thing when someone missed their objectives because they didn’t know, didn’t care, or were too afraid to confront.

All three are deadly to your performance.

Ironically, holding people accountable in a healthy way motivates your high-capacity people.

Your best people want to make weighty progress.

I’ll have more to say about that in my next post.

Leaders who fail to create cultures of ownership end up with underperforming teams and a sad resentment for losing their best talent.

Change is inevitable. Irrelevance Isn't.

What’s your strategy to RECLAIM YOUR MOMENTUM?

I’m hosting virtual coffee sessions with campus, district, and building leaders this fall to discuss the challenges of leading beyond crisis, where I will share the tips and tools to Reclaim Your Advantage.

It’s time to build (not rebuild) capacity to lead the uncharted territory ahead.

You get pushback, opposition, confusion, and anger without a proven strategy.

With better practice, you’ll be equipped to lead something more significant and more impactful than you might ask or imagine.

Claim your Virtual Coffee here.

Remember, average performance is a choice.

Trade up for Higher Performance here.

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July 2, 2025

The 7-Part Framework to Turn Your Bumbling Into Brilliance Here's what happened last Tuesday at a board meeting that was hard to watch. A brilliant superintendent with a post-graduate degree and twenty years of experience spent 45 minutes presenting their "comprehensive student achievement initiative leveraging pedagogical frameworks aligned with district strategic priorities." The board nodded politely. A parent in the back raised her hand: "Can you explain this so my 13-year-old would understand?" The superintendent couldn't. That challenging moment was a graduate course in communication: The most brilliant leaders use language a 13-year-old understands. Smart words are simple, scalable, and sustainable. Fancy words don't edify—they confuse. And to be unclear is to be unkind. Full disclosure: I LOVE words. Early in my career as a young executive, I felt I needed to use a fancy lexicon to prove my competence to my colleagues and community. 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Higher Performance Insights | ARE YOU CALLED OR CONFUSED?

By HPG Info • June 24, 2025

Why 70% of Campus Leaders Are Burning Out—and How to Join the 30% Who Aren't Are you well placed? Here's what the latest research won't tell you: Turnover rates for top leadership positions in higher education have reached an unprecedented high of over 20% between 2022 and 2024. But here's the part that should keep you awake at night—most of these departures aren't about budget cuts or external pressures. They're about leaders who never found their sweet spot. The difference between leaders who thrive and those who burn out comes down to one question: Where do your abilities, your affinities, and your opportunities intersect? Remove any leg from this three-legged stool, and the whole thing topples. Get all three aligned, and you've discovered what researchers call your "calling"—which correlates with "feelings of satisfaction, efficacy, and meaningfulness" and can even "improve career performance." 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What opportunities require us to restructure leadership responsibilities? The goal isn't perfection—it's clarity about how to deploy your leadership capital most effectively.