Welcome to Friday 411, issue #148. In 4 minutes, with 1 insight and 1 action, you’ll learn why most leadership growth plans fail and what to do instead.
1 Insight
More goals don’t mean more progress. They mean more noise.
I (Garland) recently sat with a friend, Drew, in his home office, sipping bourbon and talking about work. I noticed a document open on his computer screen. The top of the page read My Growth Goals for Career Development. The page underneath was filled with bullet points.
I asked him about it.
Drew is a strong leader. He’s been promoted multiple times over the last few years. His company is growing, and he’s been a big part of that.
His boss wanted everyone on the team to have a growth plan so they could keep getting better. That’s a good practice. And Drew didn’t need to be told twice. He loves to grow. Always has.
So Drew built his own list. He started walking me through it:
- Better delegation
- Sharper communication
- More strategic thinking
- Stronger coaching skills
- Executive presence
- Conflict resolution
- Time management
- Financial literacy
And on it went.
About halfway through, his voice slowed down. He leaned back in his chair.
“I want all of this,” he said. “I really do. But even as I’m saying it out loud, I can feel the weight of it. These won’t all help me do my job better right now. They won’t all help me lead better this year. I know I need to grow, but I don’t know where to start.”
Drew’s problem wasn’t a lack of motivation. It was the opposite. He wanted to grow in so many directions that the sheer volume of it buried him.
He couldn’t name what he was feeling. But I could.
He was drowning in scattershot striving.
There’s a Better Way to Strive
We call it strategic striving. It means you focus your energy toward a specific outcome and build an intentional plan to get there. Instead of spraying effort across a dozen targets, you zero in on the one or two things that will actually move your leadership forward.
Strategic striving starts with a simple question: What are the real issues holding me back? Not twelve of them. The one or two that matter most right now.
Then you build a focused plan around those. And you stick with it.
That’s the kind of growth that produces results. That’s the kind of striving that actually gets you somewhere.
The Problem Nobody Talks About
The term “scattershot” comes from a shotgun. Pellets spray over a wide area, hoping something hits. It’s the opposite of precision.
When leaders try to grow in a dozen directions at once, their efforts are scattershot. Energy goes everywhere. Progress goes nowhere.
Even if it’s just a few directions, scattershot striving creates overwhelm. It piles complexity on top of the complexity you already carry as a leader. You’re chasing so many growth goals that none of them get the focus they need. And if you don’t get real results you start doubting yourself instead of doubting the approach.
You are not the problem. The approach is the problem.
More goals don’t mean more progress. They simply mean more noise and frustration.
I’ve seen this pattern enough times to know what comes next. When Drew doesn’t see progress on those twelve goals, he won’t cut the list. He’ll add to it. New goals on top of the old ones. More effort in more directions. It’s what strivers do. And it only makes the problem worse.
Drew had good intentions. Growth matters. But giving yourself twelve things to work on is like pulling out twelve maps to twelve different cities and trying to drive to all of them at once.
You can’t go twelve directions at once.
Here’s Where We Can Help
Identifying your real issue is one of the first things we help leaders do inside The Unleashed Community. In the first 60 minutes after you join, three things happen:
- You take an assessment that helps you identify which leadership issue is actually holding you back.
- You get access to video resources built from over 25 years of working with leaders, showing you how to get past your specific issue.
- You develop an Unleashed Momentum Map, a focused plan that identifies a few critical actions to concentrate on.
Then, twice a month, you meet with other leaders for real connection and practical leadership training.
No scattershot lists. No twelve-direction growth plans. Just clarity, focus, and a path forward.
1 Action
Look at your current growth goals or development plan. Count them. If you have more than three, ask yourself: Which one or two would make the biggest difference in my leadership right now? Cross out the rest. For now.
Ready to stop striving in every direction and start making real progress? Check out The Unleashed Community and get clear on what’s actually holding you back.