[Self-leadership series-purpose [1/2]: Identify your leadership purpose

In my latest blog posts, you found out how to grow your self-awareness and explore your values, strengths and talents, while discovering how your belief system is working. All together, these elements are essential to understand your current leadership style. In this article, we’ll go through your leadership purpose. Articulating your purpose and finding the courage to experience it is key for any leader. Unlocking it will allow you to grow and develop to a more effective leader.


What’s a leadership purpose?

As defined by Craig and Snook, your leadership purpose is who you are and what makes you distinctive. Indeed, ‘‘Your purpose is your brand, what you’re driven to achieve, the magic that makes you tick.” In other words, it is an overview of a future state that should also serve as a «Northern Star ".

It's not what you do, it's how you do your job and why - the strengths and passions you bring to the table, no matter where you're sitting. Although you may express your goal in different ways in different contexts, it is what people around you acknowledge and experience when they connect with you and that they would miss when you’re not in the room.

In essence, your leadership purpose derives from your identity, from the very core of who you are. The goal is not a professional title, limited to your current job or organization. The goal is not a list of degrees, experience and skills you have gained over time. It's not a buzzword tagline.

Purpose is personal and it resonates with your heart and soul. It’s your why. It’s grounded in your core values and strengths. It's not a matter of aspiration, cause and effect or who you think you should be. It's who you can't help but be.

Why is it important?

Having a clear personal goal is the cornerstone of exceptional performance and well-being as a leader and self-leader.

According to Craig and Snook, clarity of personal purpose allows a leader to navigate a complex, ambiguous and ever-changing world. It is the point of reference with which you lead your life, your team and your organization.

Having clarity on your leadership and life purpose will:

  • Allow to speak out to yourself and others about who you are, what you stand for and what you want to bring to the world.

  • Help you to fulfill a mission you love. By taking on the roles and functions that allow you to embrace this mission, you can be sure you are doing things that really matter and give you energy, with a positive impact on others and the environment.

  • Support you in identifying your action plan and priorities to achieve it. It inspires and motivates you, and helps you to overcome your limits to achieve your goals. Without a vision statement, you run the risk of being caught up in the pressures and emergencies of the moment, putting out fires and meeting tight deadlines.

  • Provide you with a path for success, and it gives you permission to say no to things that distract you. It defines how you make decisions and how you create boundaries.

  • Give you the strength to remain true to yourself and gives you a foothold.

Your Personal and Leadership Purpose may also change over time. As Arruda says “As we get older, we have more life experiences and acquire new skills. If your mission statement doesn’t change, you risk not being relevant anymore.”

Only 20% of leaders have a strong sense of their purpose  …what about you? 

Only 20% of leaders have a strong sense of purpose... what about you? 

Many leaders have thought about their leadership purpose and mission at some point in their careers, but few have defined it clearly enough to guide their behavior and assess their "success".

In their article “From Purpose to Impact”, Nick Craig and Scott A. Snook found that “fewer than 20% of leaders have a strong sense of their own individual purpose, and even fewer can distill their purpose into a concrete statement.”

More worryingly, their research shows that among those with a real purpose, very few have a plan to translate it into actions that have a significant impact. Very few of them review it regularly - letting it guide their daily decisions - or share it with others, to get feedback and be accountable.

This means that the majority of today's leaders, people who have an impact on the daily lives of others, are not intentional about their impact and do not have a vision of the legacy they want to leave behind.

What do you think about that? What kind of leader do you want to be? Do you want to be the CEO of your life and lead it in a meaningful and useful way? Will you be among the 20% of leaders who have a strong sense of purpose or will you remain among the 80% of leaders who do not intend to have an impact and a legacy?


Personal Leadership Purpose (PLP), a key element missing in many leadership programs

Throughout our experience, we have observed that crafting the PLP is often a gaping issue in many leadership development programs. Most of them include a self-awareness module (what kind of leader are you today), a mapping of how far you have come (what has made you the leader you are) and sharing ideas about the kind of leader you should be (sharing leadership concepts, etc.) to finally train you to acquire a set of new skills.

A key element of successful leadership is often overlooked, namely defining the intent and impact of your leadership.

One key component for successful leadership is often ignored, namely defining your leadership intent and impact.

  • What kind of leader do you want to be?

  • And which legacy do you want to leave?

 

Stay tuned!

Next blog post will be dedicated to the three steps to find your purpose.




About the self-leadership series

This weekly series aims to share tools to help you grow your self-leadership and to connect to your three leadership intelligences: Head, Heart and Gut. When using these three intelligences, you increase your impact, relational skills, adaptability and resilience and can navigate the ever-changing environment with ease. So grab a notebook to make these practices powerful for you!

Previous articles in the self-leadership series: