
- Do you know what you expect of yourself? If yes, you can clearly define what you’ve agreed to be the measurement of success and what work you will and won’t do. You know what your beginning priorities are and how you want to show up as a leader. You create your own standard.
- Does your team clearly know what’s expected of them? If yes, each team member has agreed to SMARTER goals they have written.
- Does your team know what they can expect from you? If yes, your team knows that you are available to support them and what type of support you’ll provide. They know your strengths and areas where you can mentor and coach them. They know when and how to get your help to remove obstacles in their way.
- Does your team know what to expect of each other? If yes, your team knows how to work together. They know the values that guide the team and what behavior will help them be successful.
- Do your supporting partners know what’s expected of them, and they of your team? If yes, your supporting partners know what your goals are, the help you need from them and you know what help they need from you.
Start with Yourself
You expect a lot of yourself! You are driven and want to do a good job. I know you want to be a better leader. I bet if I asked you could list off 5-10 things you’d like to be better at. Take a moment to create agreements with yourself based on what’s most important to accomplish your goals. If you were successful in accomplishing your goals and having a fulfilling personal life what would you have done to make that happen? Get clear now on how you want to measure success for yourself.
Define Key Relationships
Feedback & Feedforward
- What are you happy about in how we work together?
- How did you feel supported by me during the last year/project?
- What is one thing you would have liked me to do differently?
- What are your expectations of me this year?
- What can I do differently to be more effective in working with you?
- What do you need from me in order to support me in achieving my goals?
- How can I support you in accomplishing your goals?
- What is one thing you would want from me to make our working relationship a success?
Setting Expectations That Set Your Team Up for Success
Here’s the recap of the most important points from the series.
- Create SMARTER Agreements that appeal to each person’s natural motivation for autonomy, mastery, and purpose while meeting their needs for certainty, uncertainty, significance, connection, growth, and contribution.
- Have a common framework for success.
- Set expectations about what needs to be accomplished and not how they are supposed to do it. The only how to set expectations around, is how they should behave.
- Clarify expectations and gain agreement with anyone who you need help from.
- Communicate often. Leaders remind their team of the vision they are working towards and check in on progress to coach them through problems.

About the Author
Kim-Elisha Proctor is an Executive Coach, teacher, and writer. For over 15 years, she has worked with companies at all stages of growth and understands the complexity of organizations and leadership that is needed for success. Whether one-on-one coaching, with groups or delivering leadership development programs, her passion is the same: to support leaders to enhance their performance, impact, purpose & well-being to create communities they long to belong to.