A method, not a mood
Move beyond encouragement and instinct. Use Goal-Setting Theory to design goals with a clear metric, target, deadline and defensible level of difficulty.
Monarch Management Institute · Micro Course
Setting Goals That Drive Performance – Locke and Latham’s Goal-Setting Theory in Practice
Turn vague ambition into a goal that focuses effort, builds commitment and improves performance. Learn to design demanding goals that people can understand, support and deliver—strengthening your credibility as a manager who turns priorities into results.
EnrollRegistration and course delivery take place in the MMI LMS.
Course introduction
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Meet the course lead and explore the practical focus, learning experience, and professional value of this course.
Enroll in this course →Course overview
About This Course
Most goals are set on instinct. A manager wants better results, so the team is told to “do their best” or to “really focus this quarter.” It sounds like leadership, but it changes almost nothing because success has no definite edge and effort has no precise direction.
The gap is in the design. Setting a number is easy; the harder work is calibrating how demanding it should be, deciding whether the task needs a performance goal or a learning goal, grounding it in belief, and building the commitment, progress information and resources a stretching goal needs to survive real work. Without that discipline, a hard target can narrow attention, invite gaming or demand a result nobody has been equipped to reach.
This course closes that gap by having you design one real goal through the complete method. A running case demonstrates every step, while you apply the same choices to a goal of your own. By the end, you will be able to make a goal specific, calibrate its difficulty, choose its type, secure commitment, support progress and defend the complete design.
Why this course is different
Most goal-setting advice stops at making goals specific. This course shows how to design the entire performance system around a real managerial priority: calibrating difficulty, choosing the right goal type, building self-efficacy and commitment, providing useful progress information and supplying the resources complex work requires. You will also learn to protect demanding goals against tunnel vision, gaming and distorted behaviour, leaving with a method you can defend and reuse.
One case, worked end to end
Follow one managerial priority through every design choice, then apply the same disciplined method to a real goal of your own.
Built to survive real work
Support stretching goals with commitment, progress information and resources while guarding against gaming, tunnel vision and crowded-out learning.
Learning objectives
- Explain how specific, challenging goals direct effort and raise performance.
- Write a measurable goal with a clear metric, target and deadline.
- Calibrate difficulty and choose between performance and learning goals.
- Build self-efficacy and genuine commitment around a demanding goal.
- Provide progress information and resources suited to task complexity.
- Guard goals against tunnel vision, gaming and crowded-out learning.
Practical outcomes
- A clearly defined goal for a real managerial priority.
- A defensible level of difficulty suited to the task.
- The correct goal type for known or novel work.
- A commitment and progress-information plan.
- A practical resource and support structure.
- A complete goal-system with safeguards against distortion.
Modules at a glance
Module 01Setting Goals That StretchDuration = 1 Week
Learn why specific, challenging goals raise performance; turn a vague aim into a measurable goal; calibrate its difficulty; choose the right goal type; build self-efficacy; and assemble a well-formed goal for a real managerial priority.
Principal themes
- Direction, effort, persistence and strategy
- Specificity: metric, level and deadline
- Calibrating goal difficulty
- Performance goals versus learning goals
- Self-efficacy and proximal sub-goals
- Assembling a well-formed goal
Intended outcomes
You will learn to design a specific and appropriately challenging goal, select the correct goal type for the task, ground it in credible self-efficacy and defend each element of the design.
Module 02Supporting Goals So They DeliverDuration = 1 Week
Learn to build commitment, provide timely progress information, match resources to task complexity, guard against gaming and tunnel vision, and run the high-performance cycle so one successful goal strengthens the next.
Principal themes
- Building genuine goal commitment
- Progress information and course correction
- Task complexity, support and resources
- Guardrails against gaming and tunnel vision
- The high-performance cycle
- Designing and defending the complete goal-system
Intended outcomes
You will learn to support a demanding goal with commitment, progress information and appropriate resources; protect it against distortion; and defend a complete goal-system that improves motivation and performance.
Dr. York
Dean of Student Development
Dr. Donald York is Monarch’s leadership specialist, bringing applied experience from high-stakes healthcare environments to the study of leadership, organisational culture and group dynamics. His professional background includes critical-care work in Montreal operating rooms and emergency wards, where he held direct responsibility for patient life support, as well as extensive healthcare instruction and multiple professional certifications. A Fellow of the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada and Certified Management & Business Educator, he serves as Professor of Leadership Studies and Dean of Student Development, helping MMI participants translate leadership principles into credible action under real organisational pressure.