Purpose: The Most Important Ingredient for Elevated Leadership

Here is what I have learned through my research and consulting:

• 7% of leaders are ineffective leaders who do a better job of keeping the peace than having an impact
• 85% of leaders are moderate to good leaders who are focused primarily on accomplishing specific goals or results
• Only 8% of leaders are great leaders who possess the ability to unify a workforce toward creating massive value for their primary stakeholders

(this maps on to Jim Collins’s Level 5 leadership framework).

Knowing of these statistics, I have been on the lookout to identify what separates the top 8% of leaders from the rest. And, while I have identified a number of factors, there is one that is the most important: Purpose.

The Power of Purpose

When I start working with executive teams, I will ask them what their organization’s purpose is, and I generally get one of two responses:

1. “I don’t know” or “We don’t have one”
2. Each member of the executive team gives me a different answer

The simple reality is that most leaders and most organizations are more focused on goals, results, and outcomes than they are purpose and impact.

Yet, most elevated leaders value impact more than results. In fact, they understand the following:

• If their people do not have a “why” for why they are doing their work, and if that “why” is not connected to creating value for others, they are not going to get their energy, passion, and engagement. And, as a consequence, they are not going to be innovative, creative, growth-minded, and impact-driven.
• Purpose > Results. This does not mean they don’t care about results, they just care about purpose more. And, they view results as an indicator of the degree to which they are having an impact.

I think it is a rare exception when we see an organization or person do great things over a sustained amount of time without a powerful purpose.

Leaders Who Prioritized Purpose

Consider these examples of elevated leaders who have prioritized purpose:

• When Satya Nadella took over as CEO of Microsoft, he said that Microsoft had lost its soul. So, in an effort to help it regain its soul, he spent a year listening to employees to construct a purpose statement from which he could lead from.
• When Alan Mulally took over as CEO of Ford, he said that “an organization, to render any service so widely useful, must be large in scope as well as great in purpose.” So, an initial priority was to identify a purpose, a polestar to guide his transformation of Ford.
• Reed Hastings (CEO of Netflix) has said that every quarter they hold meetings with Netflix’s leaders, and the number one goal for these meetings is to make sure that all leaders across the company are highly aligned on Netflix’s North Star.

All three of these leaders have established clear, inspirational, and stakeholder-centric purposes.

4 Reasons Why Purpose is So Important

As you can sense from the examples above, prioritizing purpose takes intentionality, time, and investment. Quite frankly, I think 92% of leaders do not prioritize purpose because they do not yet believe that an investment in purpose will help them accomplish their goals (which, again, is generally focused on hitting certain results).

What they don’t understand is that purpose is essential for hitting results because:

1. It gets employees to take their eyes off of themselves and put it on creating value for someone or something bigger than themselves. This allows employees to focus more on learning and growing, finding truth, fulfilling the purpose, and lifting others as opposed to being focused on looking good, being right, avoiding problems, and not falling behind.
2. It serves as a filter by which to pass all decisions through. When executive teams do not have a purpose filter, they end up focusing on too many directionless priorities.
3. If a leader does not lead with purpose, they are perceived as being “me-focused,” inhibiting their ability to be a leader others want to follow.
4. It is essential for establishing other key aspects of elevated leadership, including mission, vision, values, and culture. Ideally, a clear, inspirational, and stakeholder-centric purpose should provide the direction and context for these other four elements.

Time for Introspection

• How big of a priority is purpose in your organization?
• What is preventing it from being a bigger priority?
• Is that really more important than getting clear on purpose for the long-term effectiveness of the organization?
• Does your organization have a clear, inspirational, and stakeholder-centric purpose?
• If so, can leaders and employees rehearse the purpose in a consistent way?
• When results/outcomes are discussed in your organization, is purpose also discussed?
• Is purpose discussed when results/outcomes are not talked about?
• What do you need to do to infuse purpose more in your organization, division, or team?

If you would like help coming up with a clear, inspirational, and stakeholder-centric purpose statement, or if you would like help infusing purpose more into your organization, I would love to help. Feel free to connect with me here to discuss further.