Why are some leaders effective at truly engaging with their teams? And why do many, despite their best efforts, manage to motivate top performers but can’t get the whole team rowing in the same direction? We found that to create a common goal, it’s vital to ramp up your purpose as an organization. Here, we will share from our forthcoming book The Purpose Revolution: How Leaders Create Engagement and Competitive Advantage in an Age of Social Good reasons why some leaders fail at purpose, and offer proven practices to get your people connected and engaged for success.
Make Time for Purpose
Great leaders know that purpose should be a large part of everything they plan, say and do as leaders, but sadly, many fail to actualize their purpose. A recent Ernst and Young/Harvard study shows that most senior leaders and business owners see the value of being purpose-driven and most likely have a set of personal values leaning toward the decent human-being side of the equation. Yet, in our experience, most businesses, small and large, have leaders who are losing at purpose, or at the very least, are failing to achieve the high levels of engagement with their staff they intend to build.
Our experience shows that most leaders spend an inordinate amount of time focused on the numbers side and beating their competition, without truly embracing the balancing force of purpose. It’s not that leaders don’t care about their people, but they’re often too busy with noses to the grindstone, working in the business instead of on the business. But why spend countless hours working, if you haven’t truly figured out why you’re doing it? Your employees are asking themselves that same question every day.
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