Why Visionary Leaders Should Mind the Purpose Gap

85% of senior leaders and executives report that they can live their purpose at work.

(So sayeth McKinsey in a 2020 article titled ‘Help your employees find purpose—or watch them leave,’ and based on a survey with over 1000 respondents.)

That’s wonderful news.

(This still leaves 15%, but I'll leave that for a separate post.)

Those who can live their purpose at work – including this overwhelming majority of senior leaders and execs – also scored higher on a range of attributes, including energy, satisfaction in life and at work, professional pride, achievement and even excitement about one’s work.

However, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns.

The balance flips when we look at middle management and frontline workers, of whom only 15% are living their purpose at work.

Before examining that, let’s take a brief look at the leadership spectrum, spanning transactional leadership at one end (based on business psychology from the 1950’s that was heavily influenced by the military hierarchies of World War II, and explored leadership as a transaction between leader and follower), and transformational leadership at the other end. Rather than the ‘I say: You do’ style of leadership, transformational leadership has the visionary approach at its pinnacle. This is where leaders set a vision for others to follow and empower them to flourish within it.

Now, if 85% of senior leaders are living their purpose at work, and 85% of those below are not, then... (sorry to say it) that means that the majority of leaders are failing to provide their teams with the opportunity to live their purpose at work.

In this failing, their teams are performing lower than they could potentially perform. The missing ingredient? Purpose.

So visionary leaders need not only communicate their vision, but figure out why they may be the only ones in the room living their purpose at work, and help others to live theirs.

In plain words, there is a purpose gap – leaders are (mostly) living their purpose at work, and enjoying the broad ranging benefits that brings, while managers and frontline workers (mostly) are not. Leaders are missing a trick by not tapping into this, and are quite possibly exhausting themselves wondering why others aren't all pulling in the same direction or jumping onboard with their vision.

Purpose is clearly an essential ingredient to high-performing teams (often missing).

I don’t have the answers for this gap. Only questions. While every situation is unique, and 1:1 coaching may be one of the best approaches to explore a given leadership challenge, here are some starting questions to consider:

• What is your purpose?

• How are you able to live that at work?

• Are those around you living their purpose at work?

• If not, why not?

• What steps have you taken to find out what their purpose is and how that could align with your organisational needs?

• How is your organisation’s purpose serving your employees?

• What unlocked talents are you missing in your workforce?

• What will you do about it?

Whatever steps you take, recognising the importance of purpose and the danger of the purpose gap is essential for any successful leader.

#purpose #meaningoflife #meaning #leadership

Photos by Brett Jordan and Kristopher Roller, on Unsplash