Leading with a Clear Purpose

During a phone call with a lifelong friend, I heard one of the most unique combinations of passion and despair that I can remember. He shared how he felt like he was just going through the motions in one aspect of his professional life, grinding his teeth through each project he completed, but constantly thinking about the impact he’s making in his other business!

To give you a bit more perspective, he and I knew one another from a distance for a couple of years before trading punches at the bus stop one evening after school. For whatever reason, that started what’s become a nearly four decade friendship. Like any friendship, though, there have been times where we had less interaction than others but I can’t think of a single situation where I haven’t admired his work ethic and respected his character. While my working career began when I was around twelve years old, mine at the time was for spending money that I usually pissed away on things most kids enjoyed at the time; cassette tapes or CDs, a skateboard, a bike, video games (Super Mario, anyone…), and things of the sort. His work life started even earlier but it was for very different reasons; he was helping provide for his family! 

We worked together a time or two during and just out of high school but went different directions shortly after that. I moved away from full time construction roles when I was 19 years old but he’s worked for himself ever since - often operating multiple businesses at the same time. I tend to keep a pretty full schedule but I’m not quite sure I could keep up with him!

As we talked, he shared that through his 20s and 30s, his drive to be the best in every field got him out of bed in the mornings. In his late 40s, though, it’s become far less about winning big jobs and making lots of money. His fulfillment at this point comes from teaching others from what he’s learned.

We touched on several other things during that hour-long phone call but the premise ties back to what I’ve felt at times myself and have seen so many other business owners struggle with at some point or another. Burnout isn’t just something employees face, the folks that own the company deal with it too! 

If we’re being honest, this is something everyone with any level of leadership responsibility will feel sooner or later…  The fact of the matter is Leadership is HARD! But here’s where I’ll caution you to not confuse barking orders at someone reporting to you with thinking you’re actually leading. Leading in a way that makes an immediate impact as well as a lasting positive difference can be a heavy burden. In the toughest times, the weight we carry as leaders can be more than most are prepared to bear! This is why it’s critical that we develop a crystal-clear understanding of a purpose that drives us to continue working to earn that genuine influence that is true leadership on a daily basis. When we’ve done that, we should have a solid starting point - but there’s still another place where purpose matters if we really want to achieve great results with the teams we lead: we have to become experts at helping each of our team members fulfill their purpose too!

If you’ll hang with me, we’ll walk through some very specific steps we can do as leaders to identify a strong purpose we can each grab hold of through even our toughest times AND help each individual we’ve earned leadership influence with understand how they’re working to fulfill their own purpose. And as we do those two things, I have no doubt that we’ll be able to see a measurable difference in the things that may have been previously killing our profitability!

Before we jump into any specific step though, I think it would serve us well to have a foundational understanding for how much this matters; to us in our respective leadership roles, to the team members who are counting on us, and to our entire organization! Stay tuned…