Scott Eblin is an executive coach, a speaker, a blogger and the author of “The Next Level: What Insiders Know About Executive Success.” You can learn more about him and read his blog at Eblin Group. Or follow him on Twitter: @scotteblin.

This is the fourth post in a series exploring how to improve your leadership presence in 2012. To assess the state of your leadership skills, check out Eblin’s free leadership self-assessment, based on his book “The Next Level: What Insiders Know About Executive Success.”

Stephen Covey shared a lot of smart ideas when he wrote “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” I must have read that book at least five times when it first came out. One of the habits that has really stuck with me is, “Begin with the end in mind.” Turns out that’s not just great advice for personal effectiveness; it’s also a great idea for team effectiveness.

In working with hundreds of senior executives over the years, I’ve concluded that the most effective are those who are very clear with their teams about the outcomes that need to be achieved. When any new initiative begins, they stop and have a conversation with their team about what a successful outcome looks like and then reverse engineer back from that picture to help the team visualize what it’s going to take to stay on track with the goal.