Leaders Paint a Picture of Purpose

Since I’ve shared a few things I learned from Jeff Henderson here already, this seems like a great time to include one more. First though, let me provide some perspective. I often talk with business owners and executives who have grown a bit weary after painting a picture of their organization’s purpose (or even the mission, vision, and values) with their team and not seeing the changes in behavior they had hoped for. As I’ve said several times to this point, leadership generally comes with a significant weight of responsibility and can be incredibly hard; this is just one example of where that difficulty comes into play. With all the fires constantly burning a leader’s tail, constantly talking about the organization’s purpose, mission, vision, or values can be exhausting!

Here’s where Jeff’s story ties in… During a phone call with Jeff and Mark Cole (owner and CEO of Maxwell Leadership, who also wrote the foreword to What’s KILLING Your Profitability? (It ALL Boils Down to Leadership!), Jeff talked about a conversation he had with Truett Cathy not long after starting with Chick-fil-A regarding the “My Pleasure!” we’re all so accustomed to (nearly) any time we thank anyone for anything at one of the restaurants. It seems like “You’re Welcome” has been completely removed from their vocabulary, at least that’s what appeared to happen when our son worked there during his last year or so of high school - while he was in uniform, that is… Believe or not, Truett never had the luxury of one those little blue lights that Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith used in Men In Black to erase someone’s memory; it took TEN full years to build a culture within Chick-fil-A where team members consistently said “My Pleasure” instead of “You’re Welcome.” Since most of the business owners and executives I interact with have organizations a bit smaller than Mr. Cathy had at the time, I point to that as an example of how getting their teams to latch onto the organization’s purpose will likely require talking about more than just occasionally.

This is one more reason it’s so important for every leader to have clarity around their own definite purpose and to be sure it’s directly connected to the organizational purpose we champion for our teams. When we’ve got a strong enough purpose behind everything we do, talking about it routinely becomes a much more natural part of what we do. But talking won’t be where it stops when a purpose that gets us out of bed each day is what drives us; working to achieve that purpose will yield a walk that truly matches our talk. From there, we’ve got a platform for explaining why we do what we do, how our behavior ties to our purpose, and how all that supports everything the organization stands for.

None of this happens automatically. Leading with a clear purpose is where it all begins. When that’s in place, we’re able to connect the dots for ourselves and for the organization as a whole. From there, especially when our walk really does match our talk, we have the opportunity to begin detailing how the tasks involved in each role tie back to the organization’s purpose - and the mission, vision, and values of that organization - so that’s what we’ll dig into next.