As a global leader, setting and commu­ni­cating prior­i­ties are skills that will define the effec­tive­ness of your lead­er­ship. In truth, the guiding prin­ciple of prior­i­ti­za­tion is that when you have a set of goals there will be some that you don’t achieve. There might not be enough time, or as circum­stances change, goals become obso­lete or less impor­tant. So how do you go about setting prior­i­ties and commu­ni­cating them clearly?

Let’s have a look at a few top tips for getting this right.

Know What The Core Company Objec­tives Are

This is the first key to setting and commu­ni­cating prior­i­ties as a global leader. Make sure you under­stand what top-level manage­ment views as a priority in the first place. Your idea to over­haul employee training, for example, might be fantastic, but it may not be on the agenda for another couple of years. Don’t get caught out pursuing a strategy that’s not aligned with company prior­i­ties. It’s harder to get approval and if you do get approval, the second some­thing urgent comes up, it’ll be the first strategy to be moth­balled. So when priori­tising tasks, start with the company prior­i­ties; they’ll be your compass.

Have a Good Look at Your Strategy

Check that your initial strategy flows well and makes sense in the first place. 

• How do the goals slot together? 
• Is it a rela­tively seam­less and logical tran­si­tion or is it lots of conflicting tasks that cause chaos and make every­body feel like they aren’t really progressing? 
• Are they in an order that makes sense and is compli­men­tary for your teams as they work to meet the objectives?

The first part of setting and commu­ni­cating prior­i­ties is having a decent, coherent strategy in the first place. Ideally, prior­i­ties should already be outlined in the strategy that you would have presented which means the really hard work should already be done at this point. All you should be doing at this stage is fine-tuning the major areas and breaking a macro vision into micro steps that make sense for every­body involved.

Don’t neglect the SMART goal-setting frame­work when building a strategy and the subse­quent goals and objec­tives. It’ll help you keep sight of what is really impor­tant, why it is you’ve decided to pursue a partic­ular course of action and keep goals manage­able and easy to communicate.

Always Be Mindful of The Timeframe

Look at the goals you have; how long will it take to achieve them? When you initially presented the strategy, you prob­ably would have had a time­frame in mind, but by the time you get approval and get into deliv­ering the strategy, there could be more time or less time. Keeping a handle on how you are managing your time will help to keep you and the team focused on the impor­tant things and the overall direction.

Set Up an Account­ability Framework

Time waits for no man, but pair that with an account­ability frame­work and you are much more likely to stay on track. 95% more likely, to be exact. A clear time­line of when you’re expecting certain goals to be met and regular updates will keep every­body pulling together. 

Meet­ings are great but a visual repre­sen­ta­tion that people can look at regu­larly is a good move as well. Then, if you have several teams working on different aspects of the strategy, they can see how their work feeds into the work of others. They hold each other account­able for completing their respec­tive projects and they may see a way to stream­line the process on your behalf.

Remember It’s Not About Doing It All…

…it’s about doing what’s impor­tant. Have a clear overview of what is needed in order for the busi­ness to achieve its objec­tives and then reassess appro­priate prior­i­ties from that vantage point. Meeting goals just for the sake of meeting goals is a waste of time and resources. 

Some­times the industry land­scape will change and your goals will need to adapt in accor­dance with those changes. It’s about getting that balance just right; you want to be focused on achieving what you set out to do with your team, but taking a completely dogmatic approach won’t work when flex­i­bility is required.

Constantly be checking that your goals are aligned with what the company and the teams actu­ally need. The only thing that is ever certain in life, is that things will change. So don’t be afraid to update goals where needed to make sure that the impor­tant things are achieved and the overall strategy is delivered.

 It’s Not Just About Today…

…it’s about tomorrow too. When setting and commu­ni­cating prior­i­ties, try to think long term. You can invest six months in that marketing campaign but is it based on a fad that will quickly fade away, or is it likely to be a brand-defining, ever­green campaign that will become part of the brand story that consumers remember for years to come? Will the goal you’ve priori­tised pay divi­dends not only right now, but well into the future? 

Priori­tise the goals that serve your company now and later so that you invest the resources at your disposal wisely and you don’t waste time on things that don’t produce the most impact.

Tell Your Team When You’ve Decided to Shift Priorities

Turning up one Monday morning and saying to your team — who may have been working on some­thing for a while — that you want them to change direc­tion, will go down like a lead balloon unless you explain your reasoning. Perhaps there’s a better way of doing some­thing, or the current approach is slowing things down. That’s perfectly fine, but you need to be clear in commu­ni­cating this change of direc­tion to the team. 

Gener­ally, they’ll already know some­thing isn’t working but if you change things without their buy-in, you run the risk of demo­ti­vating every­body. So commu­ni­cate, allow room for that feed­back, and do your best to main­tain that atmos­phere of collaboration.

Keep Your Stake­holders in the Loop

Simi­larly, giving stake­holders regular updates is a source of account­ability and helps to keep levels of appre­hen­sion and confu­sion low. Keeping stake­holders in the loop about the progress of any strategy you are imple­menting requires you to be able to explain what the prior­i­ties are and why you have chosen them.

Including facts and figures will help keep things on track so they can see how the company is being impacted. But as an added note, this is a two-way street. Earlier, we mentioned the impor­tance of under­standing company prior­i­ties at the start. Stake­holders very often contain high-level manage­ment, investors and share­holders as well as other folks who have influ­ence over the overall goals and prior­i­ties of the company. If you aren’t regu­larly commu­ni­cating with your stake­holders, they could decide to take the company in a different direc­tion which will affect your strategy and you might not know about it. 

So always be talking to them about how things are going because it’ll save every­body a lot of time and a lot of stress if you are all on the same page.

So there you have it! Some top tips that will make setting and commu­ni­cating prior­i­ties so much easier. And if you’re looking for more tips on successful global lead­er­ship, or becoming a successful global leader, sign up for our newsletter now.