A Clear Purpose is Rewarding!

If any of us really hope to tap into the power of having a clear purpose while juggling all the responsibilities that come with leading a team of any size, we will need to be sure we’re getting the most possible out of every ounce of time we have. Let me be clear though, that’s no small task! Every productive person I’ve ever known has had more things demanding their time than they had hours in the day to accomplish. And we’ve seen so many great people struggle with this that we built a foundational process for addressing it into two of the six lessons of our Emerging Leader Development course and we’ve taken those steps even deeper with multiple lessons in our Leading At The Next Level program.

Since those go into a significant amount of detail, I won’t rehash it all here. However, I will share a few nuts and bolts that are critical if we’re going to have a shot at squeezing all the things that demand attention into our schedule and still be sure we can tie at least some of them back to a clear purpose. I recently heard Marcus Buckingham comment on how important that is, suggesting that we need at least twenty percent of our energy to be focused on activities that fulfill us or we’ll risk burnout. While I didn’t catch any specific study he was referencing, I’d guess most of us can understand his point…

The initial tips we share early in the Emerging Leader Development course build on something I learned while reading The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership more than two decades ago. In “The Law of Priorities,” John shares his version of the three R’s. Having done some of my most studious work while still in elementary school, I thought I was good to go when it came to readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmetic but I learned otherwise as I read his description on how to determine what’s really Required, what produces the best Return, and where do we draw the greatest Reward!

I’ll skip the Required and Return parts here for time’s sake, but I’d definitely encourage you to dig into them deeper if you’re not completely tracking how they fit into getting the most out of our time and determining our top priorities. The Reward piece, though, especially for leaders, is where we get the fuel to push through all those demands that come with the responsibility of leading. The kind of Reward John described wasn’t something we’d necessarily see on a pay stub or in our bank account, but through the fulfillment we felt as a result of what we were doing. And I’m convinced Rewards of that nature are rarely achieved without having complete clarity around our purpose.

During a separate lesson in our Emerging Leader Development course (and several lessons in our Leading At The Next Level program), we share some foundational tools for building this thing called Emotional Intelligence. By detailing a practical approach to understanding and applying The Model of Human Behavior, we’re able to help participants realize how they’re wired and why they do many of the things they do. This same concept helps identify how each of the tasks we do connect with the purpose we hold most dear.

We’ll expand more on this later on. For now, my emphasis is just on how much identifying and connecting with that purpose matters when we’re faced with so many demands on our time and energy. Next, we need to understand how much this will help us lead our teams…