Career Development All-in-One For Dummies

Chapter 2

Managing as a Leader

IN THIS CHAPTER

Knowing what to delegate

Setting goals and measuring your progress

Settling disputes among team members

Helping your team find its own path

Finding a way to lead when you’re not an official leader

Leading is about decision making. And, as you discover in this chapter, one of the most important decisions you can make is to let your team make the decisions.

Setting Reasonable Goals

A leader’s primary responsibility is setting goals. The first rule is, “Learn to be realistic about the goals you set.” When Peter Derow was president of Newsweek back in the early 1970s, a piece of advice he used to hand out was, “Take care in how you set your goals. If you set them too high and don’t reach them, you will be seen as a failure. If you set them lower and then exceed your goals, people will look at you as a hero.” Derow could have added, “Don’t set them too low, or management will think you’re too timid.”

Matching goals to your group’s abilities ...