Locke's Goal Settting Theory

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Locke's Goal-Setting Theory

By the

Mind Tools

Editorial Team

Setting Meaningful, Challenging Goals

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you

become by achieving your goals.

Henry David Thoreau, American author and philosopher.

Many of us have learned - from bosses, seminars and

business articles - the importance of setting ourselves

SMART objectives. We know that "SMART" stands for

Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and

Time-bound. But are these the only factors to consider if

we want to achieve our goals?

Dr Edwin Locke and Dr Gary Latham spent many years researching the theory of goal

setting, during which time they identified five elements that need to be in place for us to

achieve our goals.

In this article, we'll look at their research, and find out how to apply it to our own goals.

About Locke and Latham's Theory

In the late 1960s, Locke's pioneering research into goal setting and motivation gave us our

modern understanding of goal setting. In his 1968 article "Toward a Theory of Task

Motivation and Incentives," he showed that clear goals and appropriate feedback

motivate employees. He went on to highlight that working toward a goal is also a major

source of motivation - which, in turn, improves performance.

3/9/2016 3:59 PM

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Locke's research showed that the more difficult and specific a goal is, the harder people

tend to work to achieve it.

In one study, Locke reviewed a decade's worth of laboratory and field studies on the

effects of goal setting and performance. He found that, for 90 percent of the time, specific

and challenging (but not too challenging) goals led to higher performance than easy, or...