Finding your leadership purpose is not easy. Since childhood, we have been overwhelmed with powerful messages about what we should be and how to lead. We have an established blueprint that influences our thinking and behavior. In this blog, I’m sharing with you three steps to find your purpose.

The starting point is to build a clear sense of who you are and to be authentic to who you are. Don't try to become someone you're not. Don't force yourself to try to be or do something that doesn't match who you are, your strengths or your talents.

Start with a personal reflection, then create your leadership statement that you can then test and refine.

STEP 1: SELF-REFLECTION

1. Mine into your life

The first step in discovering your purpose is to explore your life and career to find common themes that reflect your core strengths (your particular skills), values (what is important to you) and passions (the activities that give you a taste for energy). Craig and Snook recommend three tips to help you to do it:

What did you especially love doing when you were a child, before the world told you what you should or shouldn’t like or do? Describe a moment and how it made you feel.
Describe two of your most challenging life experiences. How have they shaped you?
What do you enjoy doing now that brings out the best in you? What leaves you with a sense of fulfillment?

To go more in depth in this self-reflection exercise, you can revert to my previous blogs of the self-leadership series. By doing the exercises described in this post you should be able to shed some more clarity on what you stand for and your capabilities.

In their views, they recommend that you answer these questions with some peers, your life partner and/or other people close to you. You can also partner with a coach or mentor.

2. Articulate your desired impact and legacy

In a second step, ask yourself the impact you want to have as a leader and why.

Ask yourself following questions:

What do I want to be remembered for?
What kind of leader do I want to be?”
What do I want people to think or say or do differently as a result of having worked with me?
What contribution do I want to make in this world?
Whose lives do I want to change or impact and why?
What does my ideal future look like?

Take the time to answer in a thoughtful way, because it may not come all at once. Think about these questions over several days or weeks, and write down what comes to mind. Be honest with yourself: accept vulnerabilities. Over time, you will identify recurring patterns or characteristics in your responses. Pay attention to them, because they are expressions or examples of what you are really passionate about - ultimately, expressing your vision.

3. Work with a coach, mentor or peers

It may be worth working with qualified professionals who act as mirrors. Hire a certified and experienced executive coach or find a qualified mentor. You can also seek the advice of a small group of trusted peers.

STEP 2: DEFINE A ONE-MINUTE STATEMENT DESCRIBING YOUR LEADERSHIP PURPOSE

After this reflection work, combine your results in 1-2 sentences and write a clear, concise and declarative statement of the leadership objective; this explains how you will lead and who will guide your daily actions and responsibilities.

My leadership purpose is _______.”

Some recommendations:

Your purpose should be personal. Your statement must sum up your essence and call you to action. It doesn’t have to be aspirational or cause-based (e.g“Save the whales”). Don’t pull buzzwords or clichés from a business book or article.
Ensure it is compelling, easy to understand and achievable
Ensure you have a strong WHY underlying your purpose. Leaders who have a purpose aiming for a positive impact on others and/or society draw the most powerful emotional responses and pronounced support.

Don’t worry about getting it right the first time. You can wordsmith your statement as you work with it and live into it, getting it just right.

Once you have a first statement that feels compelling to you and makes sense to you, begin to share it with others. Telling others a one-minute version of it is a powerful tool for unearthing your real passions and thereby increasing your capacity as a leader. You’ll naturally build trust with your followers by articulating with authenticity who you are and how you show up.

Some examples

“To consistently lead with integrity, fairness, humility, and clear and honest communication. To mentor and develop my team, all the while creating a respectful, enjoyable, and professional working environment.” (Nicole Gonzalez)
“ To have fun in my journey through life and learn from my mistakes."( Sir Richard Branson, Founder of The Virgin Group)
“To be a teacher. And to be known for inspiring my students to be more than they thought they could be.” (Oprah Winfrey, Founder of Own)
“To serve as a leader, live a balanced life, and apply ethical principles to make a significant difference.”- (Denise Morrison, CEO of Campbell Soup Company)

STEP 3: PUTTING PURPOSE INTO ACTION

How will you know if you are succeeding in living your leadership purpose? For what outcomes are you striving? What is your Leadership Quest?

Clarifying your purpose as a leader is critical, but writing the statement is not enough. You must also envision the impact you’ll have on your world as a result of living your purpose. Your actions—not your words—are what really matter. Of course, it’s virtually impossible for any of us to fully live into our purpose 100% of the time. But with work and careful planning, we can do it more often, more consciously, wholeheartedly, and effectively.

Define you goals

Now that you have clarified your purpose; envision long-term opportunities for living your purpose (three to five years out) and then work backward from there to set specific goals for achieving them:

Define your goals for the next three to five years using the language of your purpose statement.
Then consider your goals for the next two years. This is a time frame in which the grand future and current reality begin to merge. What new responsibilities will you take on? What do you have to do to set yourself up for the longer term? Remember to address your personal life, too, because you should be more fully living into your purpose everywhere.
Then, set your goals for the next year. It is often the most difficult part, as some people wonder what to do when most of what they are doing now does not fit their leadership objective at all. See how you can change the way you perform certain tasks so that they become the expression of your goal. Also consider whether you can add an activity that is 100% consistent with your goal, e.g., spend 5% to 10% of your time on something that gives you energy and helps others see your strengths.
Now, identify the actions you must take in the coming six and three months, and 30 days to accomplish the one-year goals you’ve set? List the activities or results that are most critical given your newly clarified leadership purpose and ambitions.
Finally, look at the key relationships needed to turn your plan into reality. Identify two or three people who can help you live more fully into your leadership purpose. Identify the right role models who can teach you the right kind of lessons, the habits you want to develop. Observe them, and if possible work closely with them as you’ll pick up some learning unconsciously by being close to them.
And last but not least, use your Leadership Purpose as a guide and choose the assumptions and beliefs that will support you towards your goal. Before taking any action or decision, ask yourself “If I were the person I’d like to be, how would I behave in this meeting?”, “ What do I want people to take away if I were the person I’d like to be?”. “Which assumptions about myself and others do I need to rely on for my leadership footprint to be realistic and sustainable?” Because that really is our truest and highest sense of who we are.

Make your goals visible

Next, you must put this work into action: publish your vision, mission and values on something visible. Whether in a framed portrait, on a chalkboard, or at your desk – the power behind goals is keeping them visible.

When goals are visible, they help you to maintain regularity and accountability in your progress. In addition, your goals will give you a boost on tough days when you might lose sight of your end goal (or vision).

Assess your progress and define next steps

Put your purpose into action and assess, both from your own observations and others’ feedback – how you are living up to it, and make the changes necessary to keep building it on a day-to-day basis.

Concretely:

Foster your self-awareness and reflect on your own behavior
Recognize differences that may arise between your intent and your impact
Encourage others to give you feedback. Talk to people who don’t have anything at stake by telling you the truth (e.g. “You’re coming across a little too tough here »). That kind of unfiltered feedback, unfiltered data is critically important at senior levels because a lot of it gets very, very, very filtered.

Leaders at all levels must give themselves space, time, and permission in order to clearly define the culture of leadership they want to build around them. It is not just a senior leadership, CEO-level conversation.

To grow as a leader you must have a personal Leadership Purpose and be clear on what you stand for. Compose a draft of yours, practice telling it to others, and revise it to ensure that it’s both really true and truly inspiring. This is a conversation that starts when you are in your 20s and 30s, as well as when you are in your 40s or 50s. And it evolves as you acquire more life experience and skills.

Now that you know how to find your purpose, embrace it to become an even greater leader.

Feel free to contact us for additional coaching support or leadership programs.

FURTHER RESOURCES

To go further, here’s some food for thought:

Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life; Stewart D. Friedman
True North: Discover your authentic Leadership
From Purpose to Impact
Assess your Leadership style

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: