How We’re Wired Impacts How We Pursue Our Purpose

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Leadership is HARD! I’m not suggesting that it’s complicated or difficult, just that it nearly always brings a heavy mental and emotional burden. Fulfilling our own responsibilities is often a complicated task in itself but accepting responsibility for the lives and the livelihood of a team of people can be quite a load to carry on the best day and more than most people are ever willing to handle on the worst of days! If we don’t have a clear purpose for leading and keep it top of mind, it will likely be tough not to throw in the towel on many of the good days. And if that’s even remotely possible, I’m guessing you can come up with your own analogy for the bad days… If we’re going to have a real shot at keeping a purpose that makes leading worth it clearly in front of us through it all, we need a foundational understanding of how we’re wired; why we do the things that we do.

There are times where I choose not to even mention the DISC Model of Human Behavior specifically in conversations because I’ve heard so many folks respond that they “know all about” because they completed one of those personality tests once. Unfortunately, I understand what’s behind a comment like that. With 60-plus companies in the marketplace spouting why their flavor of DISC is better than everyone else’s, not to mention all the other variations with fancy names and other assessment methodologies, the landscape is more than a little messy. While Cindy and I do use one specific brand exclusively, we’re far more interested in providing each individual with a fundamental understanding of the science a reliable assessment is based on than we are with selling some report at an inflated cost that they won’t understand, shove in a drawer (at best), and never look at again. When we do that, they can begin to recognize patterns in nearly everyone they interact with that allows them to be more effective in their communication but they also learn a ton about how they’re wired personally. With that foundation in place, we can help them recognize why they do many of the things they do as well as why certain things are far more fulfilling than others. This same foundation can make a significant difference in how we help our team members identify and work toward a purpose that fulfills them, but we’ll circle back to that in more detail later on.

I’ve made a few references to how draining it is for me when I’m faced with work that’s more about checking boxes than getting results that make a long term difference for anyone at all. At this point, I do very little in the safety and human resources fields but I maintain the licensing and credentials so I can help out a few clients if they’re in a pinch. I recently had close to half my working hours in a single week dedicated to some of those tasks that I’d typically avoid, while still balancing a relatively full schedule of everything we normally do now (which is why you haven’t received one of these emails for more than a week). While I’m extremely thankful that I can serve a select few of our clients, and keep them from being price-gouged by some clown selling them a whole bunch of crap they don’t need, it served as a great reminder for how far those specific tasks are from the purpose that gets me out of bed each morning.

One of the most helpful things I learned about myself as I studied The Model of Human Behavior was that I’m very Outgoing and fast-paced all the time. I also learned that I’m predominately Task-Oriented but I do tend to keep things light and humorous with a fair degree of attention to detail when I’m not under a lot of stress. But when I feel like I’m being pulled from every direction like I did during that week (even though I was the one who agreed to every bit of it), I tend to lose any interest in making sure anyone has fun and the details can quickly get through out the proverbial window.

The majority of our work today requires a significant amount of preparation and a tremendous amount of attention to detail. But since it provides me with opportunities to share tools with leaders that they can then use to make a positive impact on every person in their organization, and I often get to do that from a high level perspective that helps them achieve measurable results in their organizations, it really fills my tank when it comes to purpose. The times where I have to slow down and check boxes, like re-certifying to do something they do daily but I haven’t done on a regular basis myself for more than two decades (because some gubermint agency mandated it as a requirement and I’m credential to check that specific box), it becomes really tough to connect it back to a purpose gives me fulfillment.

For me, with that highly Outgoing and Task-Oriented approach, seeing the results of the work I’m doing gives me energy and drive to work even harder and longer. And knowing that the people I’m working with can apply what I share with them to get great results of their own is icing on the cake. All said though, only about ten percent of the population share my primary behavioral style - and most of them don’t have quite as much even then. Next time, we’ll take a look at why about thirty percent of the world will need to build some fun in along the way as they work toward their purpose.