It's a mistake to assume that everything people do in life results from a goal. People commonly want things, and they undertake many activities, but it is relatively unusual to find someone truly acting from a goal. No matter what its scale, a real goal differs from simply wanting something. It incorporates specific properties and requirements. Fail to meet any of these, and you no longer have a goal that will let you lead.

Goals Are Practical

You've doubtless heard the old saying that if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. But without significant changes in life circumstances, a mendicant will not have money to keep and feed a stallion, let alone purchase one. Wanting a horse in a daydream sense is completely impractical. However, with some changes — such as establishing a regular income, saving, and amassing capital — the beggar could one day ride.

A desire without a plan for implementation is a pipe dream — something nice if it would happen, but clearly the stuff of wishful accident. On the other hand, a goal is always practical, which means it needs a plan for implementation. Instead of inspiring dreams, a goal promotes the action of pursuit. That's not to say you can easily achieve your goal, but success is always a possibility.

Goals Order Activities

A goal is important because it becomes a point of ordering your activities. Look to your own experience in traveling by car. If you're lost in an unfamiliar place, you'll either look at a map or stop people and ask them for directions. In either case, you try to pinpoint where you are and see the path from there to the particular place you want to reach. Your destination might be the nearest entrance to the highway, or it could be the new house of some old friends who just moved. No matter the specifics, you do have the goal of reaching a particular spot. When you know a direction, you can go somewhere. When you don't have a place you want to go, you're driving around aimlessly.

The goal orders the activities. It may be a matter of scheduling. You cut the lawn on the weekend because you want to get it done — a goal — and you've determined when you can do it. A corporation might change the emphasis of its activities because it wants to boost its stock price. Doing that requires enough profit to satisfy the estimates of analysts, who will then suggest the stock to their clients, many of whom will buy the stock, causing the price to rise. Running shy of that level of profit, corporate management focuses its activities on business that can quickly close. Parents want a safe place for local children to play, and so they look for space, raise money, and build a playground.

Goals Allow Measurement

Any parent has heard the plaintive wail of “Are we there yet?” drifting up from the back seat. The answer is generally an expression of time, based on the distance left to reach the destination. Without that goal, there is no way to answer the question. First of all, there would literally be no “there” that ended the auto trip, meaning there would be no answer.

Progress means how closely you have approached your destination or goal. It is only in relationship to a goal that measurement makes any sense because that goal orders your activities and gives the ultimate reference point.

Goals Are Always Practical

You can only achieve when you have a goal. Not all goals are equal. Some are easier; some are harder. Some are complex; others are relatively simple. You couldn't compare the do-it-yourselfer's desire to build a new deck with Martin Luther's intent to reform the Catholic Church as it existed in the sixteenth century. One problem is solved with tools and materials, while the other required a mighty effort to shake off centuries of habit and the interests of powerful clergy members.

Nevertheless, the two are identical in the sense that they are completely practical. In either case, a person plans (or planned) on reaching a goal. A goal that is empty or intended only to rally the troops is worthless and should be consigned to the waste can. Since it is not real, it cannot drive real action and will be useless to a leader.

Goals Are for Groups

Goals are just as indispensable for groups as they are for individuals. In fact, a clear goal is even more important for a group. If people are going to work together, they need a common framework so that their efforts reinforce each other and don't pull in opposite directions. The leader — you — helps to direct the group's activities in light of the goal and to measure its overall effectiveness in reaching that destination.

Actually, you could argue that the goal is even more vital for a group because there are so many different places that mistakes could happen and efforts can go awry. Think about the massive amounts of coordination that must happen to have a planned lunch ready by noon for a grade school. People have to take budgets and nutritional requirements into account to decide what goes on the menu, purchase the necessary food and equipment, and hire the proper staff — and that's even before you get into the logistics of serving food. Each day, the staff needs to start cutting vegetables and bread in the morning and have everything cooked and in place in warming trays before the first students line up.

Because a set of activities that a group undertakes is more complex than that of an individual, goals become more complex. In fact, leaders must learn to use a family of goals and not just a single one.