The Leadership Roadmap is a product feature within the Sounding Board app where individuals can "map out" their leadership development goals and then document their progress. In a coaching engagement, the Leadership Roadmap can serve as the agenda for the engagement.
A lot of thinking and research went into the creation of the Leadership Roadmap. The framework of the Leadership Roadmap is grounded in several widely accepted adult learning theories and models that honor different styles of adult learning. For more info about the theories and research referenced, see The Theory Behind the Leadership Roadmap.
How to Use the Leadership Roadmap
Below is a brief summary of how the Leadership Roadmap works.
Add a Goal
Goals are the specific, desired leadership behaviors that an individual wants to be activating on a daily basis in their leadership.
An individual will need to create a goal to get started with using the Leadership Roadmap. In doing so, they will be prompted to write a goal and goal description (up to 2500 characters) and then map the following to that goal:
- Leadership Capabilities that will be impacted most by accomplishing that goal
- Business Outcomes that will be impacted by achieving the goal
- Personal Impact that achieving the goal will have
Look at our other article for Tips on Creating a Goal in the Leadership Roadmap.
Add Insights/Actions/Results
For each goal created, individuals can document the Insights, Actions, and/or Results they’ve experienced related to a specific goal.
- Insights are the new areas of awareness that surface for an individual through their development process. In a coaching engagement, insights may be thought of as the "a-ha’s" and the realizations that emerge for an individual as a result of the work they are doing with their coach - during or in between sessions. Insights contribute to the mindset shifts that are necessary to lead to sustainable behavior change.
- Actions are specific leadership behaviors (or ways of being) that an individual commits to enacting as a result of the insights that have emerged.
- Results are the actual or perceived impact an individual had or made by taking the actions named above.
The Leadership Roadmap isn’t meant to be linear; instead, it’s meant to be flexible to respond to each individual’s different way of learning. For some, new insights will lead to new actions, leading to results. Others might experience results from something and then engage in self-reflection to identify what they did (action) and why they did it (insight). And for others, they might act differently, assess the results, and then engage in self-reflection to identify the learning (insights).
Accomplishing a Goal
When at least one result has been logged, and an individual feels like they've made enough progress on a goal, the goal can be marked as accomplished. When accomplishing a goal, the individual will be prompted to reflect on the progress they've made on that goal.
- Confidence Rating - How confident does the individual feel in applying their learnings from this goal on a regular basis?
- Business Outcomes - What kind of impact did accomplishing the goal have on the business? Did the individual make an impact in the various areas that were defined during the goal-creation process?
- Personal Impacts - Did accomplishing the goal have any personal impact on the individual? Was any impact made in the defined areas when the goal was created?
Note: If an individual wants to turn their attention to another goal but doesn't feel like they've made progress on a goal to accomplish it, the goal can be Paused. To learn how to do this, check out our article: Changing the Status of a Leadership Roadmap Goal.
Coach Collaboration on the Leadership Roadmap
If you are receiving coaching, your coach will have the ability to collaborate on your goals in the Leadership Roadmap. While we encourage you to have onus over their development and roadmap, your coach will also have the ability to access your Leadership Roadmap to help document any learnings and actions.
Your coach will have access to:
- Suggest a Goal - You will see suggested goals in your Leadership Roadmap. If you would like to accept the goal, you will be prompted to complete the goal creation steps of mapping the goal to Leadership Capabilities, Business Outcomes, and Personal Impacts.
- View Goal Details - Once you have finalized and created a goal, your coach will be able to view the goal and goal details.
- Add Insights/Actions/Results - Coaches have the ability to add insights, actions, and results on your behalf. You will always have the ability to edit or delete any inputs entered to reflect your own words.
- Add Comments to a Goal - Coaches can also comment on your goals as a way to discuss progress or share observations.
Manager Collaboration on the Leadership Roadmap
You have the ability to share goals, if you would like, with your direct manager. See How to Share a Goal in the Leadership Roadmap to do so.
This will give them access to view the name and description of the goal and add comments to the goal. Insights, Actions, and Results will stay private between you and your coach.