Many employees aspire to advance in their careers. While leaders must encourage employees to pursue their professional objectives, it is also important to align their development goals with the company’s overall strategic needs to create a unified momentum that propels both the business and individual teammates forward.
A manager’s role in helping team members set goals is pivotal—not only in terms of supporting their personal aims and professional ambitions, but also to ensure they contribute to the broader objectives of the organization. Below, 18 members of Forbes Coaches Council explore how managers can better guide their teams in this process, offering actionable insights grounded in real-world experience.
1. Set Quarterly Goals
Yearly goals are outdated. The workforce doesn’t plan a year out. Move to quarterly goals to engage team members. By providing the company’s core values and a copy of their position contract (or job description), a team member can quickly and easily write their own quarterly goals. It’s then the manager’s role to ensure these goals are both objective (measurable) and meaningful to the organization. – Nick Leighton, Exactly Where You Want to Be
2. Emphasize Future Key Achievements
Many employees aren’t informed about immediate organizational goals, KPIs and OKRs. They may grasp the vision but lack clarity on short-term needs. Team members can ask managers, “By next year, what two to three achievements would make us stand out?” This clarifies priorities, helping employees align their goals with team objectives and, in turn, broader organizational objectives, fostering engagement and alignment. – Mo Khan, MentorMeet.com
3. Share Goals From The Top
It’s so important for you to share the organization’s top-down goals with your team first. Then, you can jointly set goals in that context. Based on feedback and their career aspirations, sometimes additional development goals are warranted, but as a leader, you help the person zero in on the right goals by creating a line of sight between the company’s goals and each person’s job. – Kathy Bernhard, KFB Leadership Solutions
4. Create A Growth Grid
Map company objectives on one axis and employee strengths on the other. The intersections reveal golden development zones—where personal passion meets business impact. I’ve seen a marketing coordinator discover her path to product strategy by connecting her customer insight skills with the company’s innovation goals. Goals shouldn’t bridge gaps; they should amplify sweet spots. – Nirmal Chhabria
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5. Provide Examples Of Cascading Goals
Managers can provide examples of how company goals cascade down to individual roles and responsibilities before asking employees to create their annual goals. Additionally, managers should engage in an iterative goal-setting process with direct reports—ideally, after reviewing everyone’s first draft! – Antonia Bowring, ABstrategies LLC
6. Connect Purpose To Strategy
It starts with clearly communicating purpose—first, the organization’s purpose, and then how each team’s and individual’s purpose is connected to achieving the strategic goals to fulfill that purpose. When individuals feel a connection between their purpose (beyond a title or a function) and the organization’s, they will feel more inspired about how their actions and development align. – Katie Anderson, Katie Anderson Consulting
7. Set Annual Themes
Managers can guide employees by sharing quarterly company goals and setting an annual theme or intention for the year. Employees use these as a framework to align their own professional development goals with organizational priorities. Regular check-ins ensure goals stay relevant, fostering a balance between personal growth and strategic impact. This keeps teams aligned and engaged. – Leisse Wilcox, Leisse Wilcox Consulting Inc
8. Align Strategies Through Year-End Meetings
Managers can host a year-end team meeting to share the vision and strategy for the upcoming year. This ensures team members know what they’re working toward, why it matters and how they’re creating impact. Afterward, a manager can connect with each team member to review successes, expected performance goals and developmental opportunities. This interaction generates alignment between both parties. – Jaclynn Robinson, Nine Muses Consulting, LLC
9. Have Transparent Discussions
Managers can guide employees in aligning personal development goals with company objectives by starting with transparent discussions about organizational goals. Engage in mutual goal-setting where employees identify how their growth can directly impact these targets. Regular check-ins ensure these goals adapt to evolving needs, reinforcing alignment and shared commitment to success. – Alejandro Bravo, Revelatio360
10. Establish Key Learning Outcomes
The manager should draw up specific and necessary learning outcomes that connect directly to team goals and then to the company vision. This should be complemented with recent and specific feedback. From there, the manager and employee should have a collaborative conversation about the employee’s interests, motivators and areas of fulfillment to consider their professional development goals. – Chelsea Seid, Talent Praxis
11. Coach On Growth Before Goal-Setting
Before encouraging employees to set professional development goals, managers must coach each employee on where they are showing the most promise and on what may be holding them back. Then, help each to imagine how attending to either of these might impact their career. Further, make them aware that specialized skills are often far more valuable than generalized ability. – Candice Gottlieb-Clark, Dynamic Team Solutions
12. Link Roles To The Vision
As a leader, sharing the overall company vision and how the team contributes to it is a first step. Help each team member understand how they currently impact company results and how that impact may change in the future. Creating that connection helps teams understand how they can be most effective and determine what skills and experiences are important for them to grow that impact. – Carolyn Moore, CultureFluence Consulting
13. Hold Goal-Setting Sessions Annually
Annually, managers can guide employees by holding goal-setting sessions that align personal aspirations with company objectives. Review the past year’s progress, discuss strengths and interests and identify areas for growth. Provide tailored resources, mentorship and clear examples of how their development contributes to strategic goals, ensuring alignment and motivation for the year ahead. – Dr. Marita Kinney, BCC, Msc.D, Pure Thoughts Publishing and Wellness
14. Start With The Big Picture
Bring in the big-picture goals for team members and have them refine them and add to them. This writing and review period will allow the individual to see the overarching themes while adding their own twist to them. Don’t send them down from the mountain in an imposing way; look at the bigger goals as a rough draft and baseline, then let your team add some additions and flavor. This encourages buy-in. – John M. O’Connor, Career Pro Inc.
15. Look For Needs In Overall Strategic Goals
Leaders can help guide individual professional development goals by cascading the strategic goals and opening a team discussion on what new skills or knowledge may be needed. Additional questions would include what tools are needed to enable success and what support is needed from the leadership team. Individually, then, a deeper conversation can be had to guide an individual’s plan. – Laurie Waligurski, LGW Executive Consultants, LLC
16. Shift To Ongoing Conversations
Replace annual goal-setting with ongoing conversations. Managers can use these touchpoints to realign goals as the company evolves, ensuring employees stay on track and engaged in the bigger picture. – Veronica Angela, CONQUER EDGE, LLC
17. Align Goals During Evaluations
Employee professional development goals should be identified in the annual performance evaluation process, followed up with three-month check-ins during their regular one-on-one sessions. Goals should be aligned with an organization’s mission, values and strategic and departmental objectives. This holistically aligned team approach enables the achievement of company and individual goals and succession planning information-gathering. – Deborah Vereen, THE VEREEN GROUP
18. Provide Insightful Feedback
First, employees need to set their own goals. However, managers can give feedback. When I was working at my former company, in the beginning, I wrote my goals and my manager reviewed them and gave me feedback. This helped us align team goals and company goals. – Minna Hu, AI Bookkeeper
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