Supporting Our Team Members’ Purpose

Once you have a solid understanding of how to apply the DISC Model of Human Behavior for immediately improving in each of the four components of emotional intelligence - self awareness, self management, social awareness, and relationship management - I’m confident that you’ll be able to identify your own clear purpose and connect the work each of your team members do to the organizational purpose you need to achieve as a group. But to lead and not just manage those team members, I believe this next step is a requirement; we need to help each individual on our teams dial in on the purpose that drives them AND connect that back to the purpose our organization is working toward.

At least once through each step of this look at leading with a clear purpose, I’ve emphasized that accepting leadership responsibility can be incredibly difficult. This last part is no exception! Not only will it require more than most are willing to invest, especially those who attempt to run things based solely on the authority that comes with their title, there’s a risk we have to be willing to accept when we take this approach. We’ll get to the steps a leader will need to take shortly. For now, I believe we need to have a clear understanding of the risk we’ll be exposed to…

One of the most common reasons I’ve heard folks in leadership positions use for not investing in the development of someone on their team has been the chance of that person using the new skill they learn to find a position with another organization, saying that “if I train them, they may use that training to get a better job with our competitor.” I take issue with that thought process for several reasons. First, taking this stance leaves us with a group of folks who aren’t good enough at what they’re doing to have other opportunities. Next, it certainly seems like we’re admitting that we can’t (or aren’t willing to) advance this person within the organization as they develop new skills. Finally, I believe it wreaks of being interested only in our current scenario rather than the future of our organization or the best interests of the individuals who count on us - and that final piece alone will keep me from ever referring to someone as a leader!

If we’re going to truly lead with a clear purpose, part of that will require us to make investments and take risks. Anyone suggesting that being responsible for even a small team within an organization would be easy was absolutely not speaking from a place of leadership. Leadership comes with risks, like occasionally seeing the people we’ve helped grow toward their own purpose moving on to another organization or a business of their own, but I’ve never known a great leader who wasn’t genuinely excited to see their team members have better opportunities - even if those opportunities were somewhere else. The work we’ll need to do to help each member of our teams identify their individual purpose and connect that back to our organization’s purpose will initially seem hard. I’d argue that it’s no harder than the work we’re already doing, but it will produce significantly better results; better results in our organization’s bottom line and in the leadership legacy we’re each able to leave! As we wrap this up, we’ll work through just a few simple things we can take action on to make this happen…