AAW HOW TO: Set and Measure Performance Goals of Newly Recruited Leaders

Explore these helpful insights and resources to ensure newly recruited leaders are on track to reaching your organisation's performance goals

As we continue to explore the top trends in charity recruitment, we hope you enjoy these pieces of wisdom from our search team! Do get in touch if you’d like to find out more

So, you've recently hired a candidate to fill a leadership position. What now? We think it’s pretty crucial to develop leaders at all levels, and 83% of employers say it's crucial to develop leaders at all levels. 

But how exactly do you do that? It can be hard to determine how to set and measure the performance goals of newly recruited leaders. After all, unlike entry-level employees, people in leadership positions already have years of experience and it might not be quite so simple to measure success.

In this guide, you'll learn about helpful insights and resources you can use to ensure newly recruited leaders are on track and aligned with your non-profit's goals. We break down corporate leadership, goal setting, key performance indicators, and more.

Performance Goals

First, it may be helpful to define what performance goals are. Performance goals are short-term targets or objectives that employees are expected to reach, to drive an organisation forward. Without these goals in place, an organisation doesn't have a clear path forward. For those in leadership positions, performance goals are crucial for measuring their impact.

Goal Setting

Of course, in order for your new leader to hit their performance goals, you need to begin by setting goals. After all, how are you supposed to measure their effectiveness if you don’t have clear goals laid out for them to work towards?

First Steps

There are many ways to go about goal setting for newly recruited leaders, but it's best to first think about their key roles, responsibilities, and day-to-day duties. From there, you can then zero in on the exact tasks that they will need to accomplish.  

Next, you'll want to figure out what their targets are. You'll want to set targets that are difficult to achieve, but not impossible. You want to motivate your leaders to succeed while also demanding a high level of performance. 

In order to measure your new leader’s performance, you will need to figure out what measures or key performance indicators you'll use. These will vary depending on the role you are managing, but may include things like costs, revenue, retention, acquisition, and employee retention and satisfaction.

Crucially, their goals should also fit in with the organisation’s wider strategy and goals.

Timeframe

Once you've defined all of the above, it's time to decide what your desired time frame is for achievement. Is it a year, two years, or six months? The time frame is completely up to you and your organisation's goals.

By setting specific time frames for goals, leaders are more empowered to determine what steps they need to take—and when—to achieve their goals. Then, once you've determined the time frame for goals, it's time to decide what takes priority.

Prioritisation is key because we know that leaders have demanding and varied roles and will be pulled in many directions. However, by prioritising goals, leaders can determine what activities need to take centre stage over others and ensure that the big picture isn’t forgotten amongst the demands of the day-to-day.

How to Measure Performance

So now that you’ve got some goals in place, it’s time to think about how you will measure the effectiveness of your new leader. Without measuring their performance, you have no way to determine how effectively (or not effectively) they are performing.

You’ll want to use quantitative data to track performance. This should include metrics focusing on their leadership skills, like employee turnover, employee engagement, and retention. For example, higher promotion rates or rates of employee satisfaction signal a job well done by leadership.

You’ll also need to incorporate metrics that relate to the performance of your non-profit. If you see improvement in any key KPIs after bringing on your new leader, then this could be a result of their performance, so you want to track those KPIs and the projects that your new leader is working on.

You’ll also want to put a process in place for gathering employee feedback. Since leaders will normally manage a team of employees, making sure that you are collecting feedback from these individuals is key to understanding how they are managing their team.

Finally, if you want to take performance to the next level and ensure that your new leader is off to an exceptional start, you might consider bringing in a third party like AAW Group to help you establish a strategy and KPIs for your new leader to work towards.

Assessments

Leadership assessments are a great way for the organisation and the leader to evaluate their performance. A leadership assessment allows organisations to take a closer look at the leader's traits, characteristics, strengths, weaknesses, and more.

By using these sorts of assessments, a leader can build out a profile for who they are as a leader, which can help them become more effective at what they do by identifying areas for improvement and promoting self-awareness – a key trait for leaders.

Get Help With Recruitment Today!

Hopefully, you now understand how to set and measure performance goals of newly recruited leaders. Remember that you need to perform goal setting to determine objectives before finding an effective way to measure performance. That way, you can also give credit where it's due and praise leaders when they achieve those goals.

Whether you’ve just recruited a new leader, or you’re thinking about recruitment - why not explore AAW Group's variety of services? As a global fundraising and strategy practice working with UK and international non-profits, we can help you recruit the right leader for your organisation through our three core services: executive search, shortlisting services, and interim management.

Not just that, but we can also support you with the development of organisational strategy to ensure you’re on the right track for a real step-change in performance.  

With clients such as St. John's Ambulance, The Royal Parks, and WWF (World Wildlife Fund), you can rest assured that you'll be in good hands with AAW! Get in touch with us here to find out how we can help.