Finding Your Leadership Purpose

What is leadership purpose? 

Leadership purpose is your internal understanding of why you’re doing what you’re doing. Your leadership purpose should be tied to your values, hopes and worldview. It’s what matters to you. And it should be evident in your daily actions.

As explored by this Harvard Business Review article, leadership purpose is like a North Star for executives because it provides you with a viable course of action. Also, it helps guide you during times of intense change, which seems to be all of the time these days. 

Why is leadership purpose important?

If you don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing, your actions won’t be coherent or meaningful. If your actions don’t have meaning, you lose motivation. And it’s hard to lead other individuals, because they don’t understand what you’re about and you don’t know where you’re going.

Every leader should have a leadership purpose. It’s not a mission statement or a corporate vision. It’s about you and how you are defining yourself in your circumstances. It’s your personal purpose that’s operating in the context of leadership. It’s a personal statement for you about why you’re doing what you do.

How do leaders discover their leadership purpose?

Leadership purpose is not somewhere out there in the universe waiting for you to find it. You don’t discover your leadership purpose ­– you create it!

Creating your leadership purpose is a theme that is woven into all of our leadership development programs at The Truist Leadership Institute, and our leadership programs are designed to help business leaders form their own leadership purpose. For instance, we have a process that helps executives understand what is most important to them. We urge leaders to look back to their career as though they are retired and ask themselves questions like these:

• How do you want to have led?
• What do you want colleagues to have said about you?
• How did you make them feel?
• What do you want to have accomplished?

Then they work backward from that perspective and start to create their own leadership purpose.

What are some of the challenges associated with leadership purpose?

Maintaining your leadership purpose is not easy. It means holding yourself accountable to an idea, to something that is bigger than you. People in your workplace won’t always share the same values or sense of purpose as you do. You won’t be able to enact your leadership purpose easily in certain situations – you may encounter some pretty high barriers. And you’re human, so you’re going to mess up sometimes. 

Should leaders share their leadership purpose?

Yes, you can, but you don’t have to. However, sharing your leadership purpose isn’t simply telling colleagues “this is what I’m about” and leaving it at that. Your actions as a leader must be aligned with your purpose as a leader. That’s why it’s called leadership purpose! The people around you should be able to understand your purpose through your actions ­– it is about how you translate your beliefs to your behaviors.

It’s best to share your leadership purpose with friends in the organization with whom you have a trusting relationship. Sharing it should be accompanied with a request that these people hold you accountable. Then, you have to be open and vulnerable enough to receive feedback about your actions.

How can leaders put their leadership purpose into action?

There are four primary ways. You can use it as a decision-making tool to help guide you. And it can help you manage and navigate work relationships, which is the essence of leadership. Also, it’s particularly useful in challenging moments when you are faced with a new situation or being pulled in several different directions. Finally, you can use it as a daily action-review tool, and you can monitor your behavior by asking yourself questions like “Given what I value and what I want to be, how did I do today?”

What are some misunderstandings about leadership purpose? 

Typically, I encounter two misconceptions. Executives think their leadership purpose should be the same as their company’s mission statement or corporate vision. It shouldn’t be exactly the same. As I mentioned earlier, your personal leadership is about you and your values. Another misconception is that creating a written leadership purpose statement is a one-time exercise. It’s not! Just because you brush your teeth once a day, it doesn’t mean you have great dental hygiene. Leadership purpose is something you do day in, day out at work.

Every leader should create their own written leadership purpose statement and understand that, like all human creations, it is imperfect. Leadership is messy, and leadership purpose is a powerful tool for creating the life they want to live and for being the leader they want to be.

For more information about Mastering Leadership Dynamics or other programs, please call 336-665-3300 or email us at LeadershipInstitute@Truist.com.