Values Before Vision: Why Most Goal-Setting Starts in the Wrong Place

Ask most leaders how they set a goal and they will describe the same sequence. Picture where you want to be, work backwards into a plan, take the first step, and keep adjusting until you arrive. It is a tried-and-tested model, and it has dominated goal-setting conversations in coaching and management for decades. There is nothing wrong with the sequence itself. The trouble is where it starts.

Vision-first goal setting assumes the destination is the interesting question. In practice, the more useful question sits one layer beneath it: what does this destination need to be true to, and for whom. Anthony Grant, whose research underpins much of the goal-focused coaching literature, has noted that some coaches deliberately steer away from the word "goal" altogether. Instead, they help clients explore their values first, clarify what actually matters to them, and only then turn to the practical work of pursuing an aspiration. That ordering is not a rejection of goals. It is a recognition that a goal without a value underneath it tends to be borrowed from somewhere else, whether that is a competitor's benchmark, a parent's expectation, or last year's version of yourself.

Edwin Locke's original goal-setting research, still one of the most cited bodies of work in organisational psychology, established that specific and challenging goals reliably outperform vague ones. That finding holds up. What it does not tell you is why a goal survives contact with a difficult Tuesday and another one quietly disappears by March. The goals that persist tend to be anchored in something the person genuinely values rather than something they were told to want. Research tracing the history of goal theory back through self-determination work makes a similar distinction between goals pursued because they are intrinsically meaningful and goals pursued because an external reward or consequence demands it. The first kind tends to survive setbacks. The second kind tends to survive only as long as the pressure that created it.

This matters most for leaders, because leadership goals rarely fail from a lack of planning…

Leadership goals fail when the plan was built on a vision that never quite belonged to the person carrying it out.

A leader who sets a growth target because the board expects one, without first checking whether that target sits comfortably against how they want to lead and what kind of organisation they are building, is setting themselves up for a goal that motivates for a quarter and then becomes a source of underlying resentment.

The more sustainable approach reverses the order. Before mapping out where you want to go, take the time to name what you are unwilling to compromise on along the way. This might be the quality of relationships on your team, the pace at which you are prepared to work, or the kind of decisions you want to be proud of in five years. Once those values are clear, the vision that follows tends to be sturdier, because every goal built from it has already been tested against what you actually care about.

In practice, this looks less like a single conversation and more like a habit. Revisit your values before every planning cycle rather than assuming last year's list still holds. Notice when a goal feels like an obligation rather than a commitment, since that gap is usually a sign the value underneath it has shifted or was never quite yours to begin with. And resist the urge to skip straight to the SMARTER framework before you have done the quieter work of naming what the goal is actually in service of.

If you want a structured way to work through this before your next planning cycle, the Personal Values Workbook is designed to do exactly that: a practical process for identifying your core values before you set a single goal, so that whatever vision follows is one you can actually sustain.

The map is only useful once you know which direction matters. Start with the compass.

Want to chat about how your personal values can define your vision? Book a FREE, no-obligation Fit-Check