Goal-Setting and Achievement for School Leaders
Every school has goals. Most of those goals don't change anything. And the reason has nothing to do with ambition or commitment.
SMART goals have become the default framework in education — Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound. And they're useful for one specific purpose: monitoring progress toward a measurable target. But they're terrible at the two things that matter most for actually achieving results: motivation and daily action.
Try setting a SMART goal for improving your most important relationships. Or for becoming a better listener. Or for building a culture of trust. It's awkward, because the most meaningful goals resist clean measurement. That doesn't make them less important. It means SMART goals are necessary but not sufficient.
What leaders actually need is a multi-level goal architecture. At the top, you need a purpose goal — the big, meaningful outcome that provides direction and motivation. "Every student reads at grade level" is a purpose goal. You can't achieve it through a single action, and it may not be fully measurable, but it orients everything else.
Below that, you need milestone goals that mark real progress. "Increase the percentage of students reading at grade level from 67% to 80% by May" is a milestone goal. This is where SMART criteria are genuinely useful — specific, measurable, time-bound.
But here's where most goal-setting falls apart: neither purpose goals nor milestone goals tell you what to do tomorrow morning. For that, you need practice goals — the specific, controllable daily behaviors that drive results. "Visit three classrooms per day and have a feedback conversation after each visit" is a practice goal. You can do it today. You can track whether you did it. And over time, it produces the outcomes your milestone goals measure.
The problem with "magic-wand thinking" — defining goals by their outcomes without working backward to the changes in practice that would produce them — is that it skips the messy middle where all the real work happens. Test scores aren't something you can do. They're a byproduct of thousands of daily decisions. If your goal doesn't connect to specific, controllable actions, it's not a goal. It's a wish.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why aren't SMART goals enough for school leaders?
SMART goals are useful for one specific purpose: monitoring progress toward a measurable target. But they're terrible for the two things that matter most — motivation and daily action.
Try setting a SMART goal for improving your most important relationships. Or for becoming a better listener. It's awkward because the most meaningful goals resist clean measurement. That doesn't make them less important — it means you need a different type of goal alongside your SMART goals.
The most effective approach uses multiple levels: a purpose-level goal that provides meaning and direction, milestone goals that mark real progress, and daily practice goals that drive the specific behaviors you can control. SMART goals fit at the monitoring level, but they shouldn't be the whole architecture.
What's the difference between a purpose goal and a progress goal?
A purpose goal is the reason you're doing the work — the big, meaningful outcome you're pursuing. "Every student reads at grade level" is a purpose goal. You can't directly achieve it through a single action, and it may not be fully measurable, but it orients everything else.
A progress goal is a measurable milestone along the way. "Increase the percentage of students reading at grade level from 67% to 80% by May" is a progress goal. It's specific and trackable, but on its own, it doesn't tell you what to do tomorrow morning.
The mistake most schools make is setting progress goals without a compelling purpose goal above them (so the numbers feel arbitrary) or setting purpose goals without progress goals below them (so there's no way to tell if you're making headway). You need both — and ideally a layer of daily practice goals underneath that drives the actual work.
How do I stay on track with goals throughout the school year?
The school year has a natural rhythm that works against sustained goal pursuit. September is full of energy. October brings the first crises. By November, most goals have quietly slipped to the back burner. The problem isn't commitment — it's the absence of a structure that keeps goals active amid the daily chaos.
Two structures help most. First, shorter planning cycles — think in terms of two-week sprints or quarterly milestones rather than a single year-long plan. Shorter cycles create more frequent moments of recommitment and course correction. Second, daily tracking of the specific behaviors that drive your goals. Not outcomes — behaviors. Did you visit three classrooms today? Did you process your inbox? Did you hold the conversation you'd been avoiding? A simple daily scorecard keeps the right actions visible when everything else is competing for your attention.
What's wrong with "magic-wand thinking" when it comes to goals?
Magic-wand thinking is when you define a goal by its outcome — "I want my school's test scores to improve by 15%" — without working backward to the specific changes in practice that would produce that result. It skips the messy middle where all the real work happens.
Test scores aren't something you can do. They're a byproduct of thousands of daily decisions by dozens of teachers over the course of a year. If your goal doesn't connect to specific, controllable actions, it's not a goal — it's a wish.
The antidote is to work backward: What teaching practices would produce these results? What would need to change about current practice? What support would teachers need to make those changes? What would I need to do daily to provide that support? Now you have something actionable.
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Related Books
- Now We're Talking! — The goal of three classroom visits per day serves as a powerful example of a practice goal — specific, controllable, and daily — that drives broader instructional leadership outcomes.
Go Deeper
Members of the Instructional Leadership Association get live weekly sessions, community support, and implementation tools for putting these ideas into practice. Learn more about ILA →