A SENSE OF PURPOSE

Second publication in the Change Acceleration series

Choose your actions; living your life and being in leadership role from the place of purpose.

Most of us leaders want to have a positive impact in the world, we want to create, deliver things that will be of use for others. We want to do things that matters. We want to make this world a better place to live. A feeling of meaning and a sense of purpose gives a direction to our lives. It is a predicament for the life to flow through us.

If you drive the numbers only, you are not happy, you are waiting for the happiness to come after achieving your objectives. You can gain more things; material things; but they will never make you joyful for a long time. The truth is that, when you achieve your objectives you happiness ends quickly after you achieve it. You need to set up new objectives to visualize happiness you desire; to come later on.

The more we align people around a shared purpose the more engaged and motivated people will be. When you drive the numbers you have to pay the numbers. When you drive the purpose the pay is still crucial, but the extra work people do is for that purpose. Numbers needs to be a part of the equation, but not the only one. When people contribute to a shared purpose they engage themseves from the place of being themselves, purely motivated to do the right things for the right cause.

You will be able to align your team or the organization around a shared purpose if you personally are living your life purposefully. People will believe you Then. There are two aspects that needs to be considered. One is clarity around what is it you really want to do, create, achieve and why. But the second aspect; even more important; you have to drive your life from that place of purpose. You have to show that your decisions, your actions and your choices are aligned with the purpose. That is exactly when Something gets in your way. The more ambitious purpose in the organization you have, the higher probability that there will be people who will hinder your enthusiasm. You will have moments when everything moves easily, people contribute, you keep the steering wheel. There will be periods of time when you will be pushing and people will be scattering your energy and efforts.

If you are not aware of what is that Something that resonates between you and your people while driving your vision, finally you will reach a point when the more energy you add to your endeavour the more resistance you will meet. Instead of Choosing your actions you will React. Typical reactions of mine in the past were: escaping, ignoring or pushing more. Whenever I met a team member who was blocking, complaining, saying that things are not possible I was getting irritated; To not show my irritation I was ignoring him or her. I used to drive my visions by focusing on people who wanted to contribute; that was not a bad approach at all; but limited. I was not using all the potential in the room. Years later I realized that people who used to block my effort resonated with me and triggered Something in me that I did not wanted to acknowledge.

You can either put more and more effort into your endeavours till the moment you have enough or you can stop for a while to get wider Understanding, to see what is really going on; in the team dynamics, in organization, in your endeavour, and most importantly inside of Yourself. Something that is triggered by people in you, if unnoticed and unadressed can lead you to the moment you personally give up. You start treating your job as a work for pay. People will feel it immediately. You will drag Them and Yourself down to a very miserable place. It is not what it meant to be. You have not chosen you leadership role to be an employee who fills your duties and go back home. You want to have a meaningful role in the world, in your organization and in your team. You wish to express yourself freely, be truelly yourself more often and create something valuable in your life; for yourself and for others.