The start of a new year offers the opportunity to reflect on how your work has evolved and where you want to grow. Whether you’re trying to navigate emerging technologies, manage teams through change, or chart a new path, the right resolutions can help you move forward with intention.
Research shows that setting specific, challenging goals improves performance. Consider these five career resolutions to expand your impact and position yourself for long-term success in an increasingly digital and dynamic business landscape.
Career Goals to Set for the New Year
1. Strengthen Your Leadership and Management Skills
Organizations today need leaders who can guide teams through complexity, inspire innovation, and adapt quickly. Whether you manage others or aspire to, leadership and management capabilities are essential.
Developing these skills can yield strong results. According to a recent survey conducted by City Square Associates, 82 percent reported greater confidence leading business initiatives, while 85 percent felt more confident making business decisions after completing a Harvard Business School Online course—demonstrating how learning can translate into meaningful career outcomes.
This year, commit to:
With business evolving at a rapid rate, strong leadership skills are more essential than ever. As Patrick Mullane, executive director of HBS Online and Executive Education, shared in Forbes: “Leading others is something generative AI tools can’t do. The intuition, charisma, relationship-building, and other traits common in a great leader don’t exist in generative AI.”
2. Develop a Digital-First Mindset
Digital transformation is reshaping every industry, from finance and healthcare to entertainment. Building a digital-first mindset enables you to understand emerging technologies, contribute to innovation, and help your organization stay competitive.
A digital-first mindset means:
If you want to strengthen these capabilities, the Credential of Digital Innovation and Strategy can help you develop the strategic perspective to lead in a digital-first world.
3. Learn How to Use AI to Improve Your Work
AI is no longer optional; it’s core to how modern organizations operate. Understanding its potential can help you work more efficiently, enhance your decision-making, and identify opportunities for value creation.
Start by:
Strengthening your AI fluency should be a top priority for your New Year’s resolutions. HBS Online’s AI Essentials for Business and AI for Leaders courses help you understand how AI can inform strategy, improve decision-making, and support team performance. Pairing these capabilities with core leadership skills can profoundly enhance your career trajectory.
4. Prepare for Disruption and Understand the Trends Transforming Your Industry
From AI and automation to evolving customer behaviors and new regulatory pressures, industries are experiencing sustained disruption. According to the World Economic Forum, broadening digital access is expected to be the most transformative trend, with 60 percent of employers anticipating it will reshape their businesses by 2030.
As disruption reshapes markets, you must know how to identify emerging opportunities, assess potential threats, and translate technological change into effective business strategies. Courses like HBS Online’s Disruptive Strategy help you build fluency in disruptive innovation theory, understand shifting customer needs, and develop executive-level strategies for growth in uncertain environments.
This year, commit to:
Equally important is knowing how to lead through disruption once change is underway. The HBS Online course Leading Change and Organizational Renewal focuses on executing transformation, overcoming resistance, and balancing short-term performance with long-term innovation—critical capabilities to have when industries are being reshaped.
Understanding the forces transforming the business landscape, whether technological, economic, or social, helps you make decisions that position you and your organization for success.
5. Align Your Work with Your Values and Long-Term Goals
Purpose-driven professionals report higher engagement and fulfillment—and organizations increasingly look for individuals who can articulate clear values and guide others toward a meaningful vision.
Reflect on:
- What motivates you at work
- The type of impact you want to have
- Organizational values that feel meaningful to you
In the HBS Online course Personal Branding, you’ll explore how identifying your core values, mission, and voice is essential to building authenticity at work. Your values act as a compass—guiding decisions, partnerships, and tone.
Clarifying your personal value proposition, which is a clear statement of how you’re uniquely equipped to deliver value, can help anchor your decisions and career direction over time.
Use that clarity to guide the opportunities you pursue, the projects you prioritize, and how you show up at work. When your values and strengths are aligned, your work is more focused, credible, and impactful.
Achieve Your Goals in the New Year
Setting resolutions is only the first step; sustaining progress requires a clear plan. Outline small, measurable actions you can take each week, look for ways to practice new skills in your current role, and celebrate early wins to stay motivated.
If one of your goals is to expand your business knowledge or accelerate your career, explore HBS Online’s certificate and credential programs. Our engaging, interactive learning experience, rooted in real-world cases and guided by world-class faculty, can help you build the capabilities to thrive in the year ahead.
This post was updated on December 22, 2025. It was originally published on December 20, 2018.
