Supporting others to achieve goals

As a manager, leader, supervisor or team members it’s a valuable approach to provide support to others in achieving their goals.

Benefits of supporting others

Supporting someone else to achieve their goals has a range of benefits. These include:

  • Feel good that you have helped someone. Learn more about the science behind altruism in this Wall Street Journal article.
  • Gain insight into the journey it takes to make a change
  • Help to build their resilience
  • Build and strengthen your relationship by communicating on a different level, regarding different topics. You may find out that you have things in common
  • Develop trust
  • Benefit from the changes they make
  • Achieve some of your own goals by aligning goals and objectives with theirs

 

Supporting-others-to-achieve-their-goals

 

How you can support others

  • Listen when they want to share with you. Ask follow up questions to show your interest
  • Be a mentor – a sense of accountability may help to motivate them
  • Check in regularly to see progress
  • When there seems to be a blockage or challenge, talk about it to work out how to get through it. This is similar to the role of a mentor or coach.
  • Let the other person know that you are flexible – there is a difference between wanting to share your progress with someone and feeling like you have to
  • Offer to teach them new skills
  • Connect them with other people who you think could help them
  • Read through plans or other documentation and provide constructive feedback
  • Invite them to share their progress with you or the team
  • Celebrate their achievements
  • Adjust their work load / type / structure to suit the goals they are working on

 

Supporting others to achieve their goals is an important part of developing strong, resilient individuals and teams.