Career Planning with Purpose

When we recognize and understand the purpose that drives each of our team members, and we’ve been able to determine how they’re most interested in working to achieve it, the work we can do as leaders to help them in that process can become as rewarding as nearly anything else we do! I don’t know that I’ve seen many who have been willing to earn the authentic influence that is real leadership who hasn’t felt tremendous fulfillment from helping the folks on their teams find a place of harmony while they’re working hard toward a worthwhile goal…

Knowing what they want most, as well as the things they’re willing to do to achieve it, gives us a unique opportunity to actively look for the tasks within our areas of responsibility that can stretch our team members and prepare them for the path ahead. To that end, we’ll likely even have times where we see places outside the scope of our own role that could still serve them. While it’s always tough to risk losing a great team member, the best leaders I’ve ever worked with have been far more interested in seeing their people succeed than holding them back to protect their own interest. But notice I was specific in saying “the best leaders I’ve ever worked with” rather than referencing every supervisor or manager I’ve ever known; we’ve all seen our share of the ones trying to run a crew on just the authority that comes with their title who actively work to hold their teams back. That may help keep some skills within the team short term but it certainly doesn’t earn loyalty or that ever so critical discretionary effort long term - and it’s absolutely not leadership!

Here’s where I want you to consider a time in your career where you had something resembling that work/life harmony I’ve referenced a few times here. Now think about the leader you’ve worked for or with who did the most to help you advance toward achieving your goals - or maybe even move closer to your own definite purpose… I can honestly say that I’ve had a few who have done both! The one who comes to mind here was my direct boss for more than a decade. While I learned more about workplace safety from him than anyone else on the planet, that’s just a small piece of how he helped me advance in my career and move toward the purpose that Cindy and I worked on constantly today. In addition to direct training and mentorship, Kevin was a constant supporter of any outside development I asked about. For the organization to cover the tab, I had to be able to show how it tied in with my role and how I’d apply what I learned but he was just as supportive of me looking into other things - the company just wouldn’t pay for it. 

Not long after I started working for him, we had a conversation where he suggested that I interview for at least one job with another company each year. As probably anyone in their mid 20s would have been, I was a bit startled - and even concerned - to have a boss make such a suggestion. I’m sure he saw that concern on my face because he immediately explained that he definitely didn’t want me to leave but he also didn’t want me to ever be in a situation where I need to start looking for a new position without being prepared and completely comfortable with the process. In the time I reported to him, I quickly saw that he was one of the most humble leaders I had ever known, always making sure I got praise for the work we did together and rarely accepting any of the credit himself. As I look back on that entire experience, I’m forever grateful for all he did to help me succeed. And in complete transparency, the advice about interviewing has served me well ever since - even though I didn’t actually do it once each year like he suggested.

I worked as hard for Kevin as I have in any role I’ve ever been in. I can say with absolute certainty that the steps he took to help me, as his employee, succeed in my role and move forward in my career provided me with as much reason to give every bit of discretionary effort I was capable of - and that support gave me more energy than even the results we achieved through our work.

With that example in mind, I’ll challenge you to consider how you’re currently providing your team members with that kind of support. But don’t worry too much if you’re not because there are some simple ways to start that process…

Delegation: Building Them to Achieve Their Purpose

Suggesting that I interview for a different position at least once each year was just one of things Kevin did to actively help me grow and move closer to achieving a purpose that mattered to me during the time he and I worked together on decreasing the safety hazards throughout the entire manufacturing facility. From the beginning of our working relationship, I remember Kevin showing an active interest in my background, hobbies, and family. We had a lot of conversations about the goals I had at that point for my career as well as things I wanted to accomplish personally. Looking back on that more than two decades later, I can see how he was able to use the understanding he gained through doing that to be intentional about the opportunities he gave me. I can point to very specific ways that helped me develop in the role I held then and how it groomed me for roles I moved into over time. And make no mistake, his effort to help me succeed earned a level of respect and engagement that I can’t say I’ve had for many others in my career. His name is one of a very select few that I actually get excited about when I see it pop up in a message on my phone!

Now, back to what I challenged you to consider before: how are you currently providing your team members with the support they need to achieve their goals - and continue working toward their definite purpose? As we looked at the R’s previously, specifically being willing to delegate tasks that aren’t Required to be done by us and how being intentional in that delegation can help Reproduce more leaders around us, I touched on how this can tie in with helping our employees succeed. The thing is, all of this takes time that most leaders don’t have an abundance of. There’s no perfect world where we can simply hit the pause button on everything else that’s demanding our time so we can walk a team member through all the steps necessary to take on one of those tasks that could help them grow if we could successfully delegate it. All too often, we face the pressure of pushing through it ourselves, as quickly as we possibly can, so we can focus our attention on the next fire that’s burning our backside. Sometimes we may be thinking about who we could hand the task off to and how they’d benefit, but there are plenty of cases where we don’t even have the time or space to consider it.

In coaching sessions with a number of business owners and executives, I’ve challenged them to block a set time where they start a list of the tasks they can delegate and begin making notes about which members of their teams are best suited to take those on. I also ask them to consider which of those same team members will benefit the most from exposure to these tasks. With the list started, they’re then able to add tasks or names to it any time. But without the list in place, any of the thoughts about who could do a task in the future are frequently lost as we fight through the urgency of the moment.

One issue I’ve seen come up more than a few times with delegation has been a perception that it’s just piling additional work on someone else while lightening our own load. Dumping extra tasks on our team members can indeed reduce what we need to check off our own to-do list, but what I’m referring to here is anything but dumping. To help our team members move toward their own clear purpose while we’re doing the required work to achieve the overall purpose of our organization, we’d better be clear about why we’re passing any given task to them and how we believe it will help them in the future. We cannot leave this to chance or assumption!

Achieving Purpose: Success in Work and in Life

Building purpose into any career path we help a team member pursue can provide a tremendous amount of fulfillment - for them and for us! Over time, the work we do to delegate tasks that provide them with exposure and build their overall skill set will also help us use our own time more effectively as we work toward that purpose driving us. Make no mistake though, it will do anything but save us time on the front end - assuming we’re truly delegating tasks that will stretch them (and helping them actually learn the tasks) rather than simply dumping the work we don’t care for and running away as quickly as we can…

As I mentioned before though, we can’t just hope any of our team members automatically understand why we’re doing this. Not only do we need to be very intentional about setting them up for success as we assign any new task, we need to be very clear in explaining how we believe that task - and the experience they gain through it - can help them reach their own goals. If we’ve done our homework by asking the right questions, listening to their replies, and studying the behavior that backs those replies, we shouldn’t have any issues verbalizing the purpose they’re driven by. And with that in place, connecting each new task we expose them to back to the full impact they can have as they work toward their purpose, it will be clear that we’re not just looking to duck out work we don’t want to do ourselves.

I’ve been blessed by several supervisors, managers, and mentors (who had no positional authority over me at all) who did exactly that for me. Providing me with the opportunities, as well as clarity for how each could help me grow, has opened countless doors throughout my career. From time to time in talking with friends like Kevin, Terry, or Rod (the HR manager who also expected me to produce a measure return on investment), they’ll compliment me and Cindy on something we’re doing. As much as that means to me, because each of them did so much to invest into helping me grow, I believe seeing anything positive we achieve means just as much to them. As leaders, we won’t likely have a shortage of demands on our time but there are very few things that provide the kind of fulfillment that we’ll feel from helping our team members achieve their goals - in their careers and in their lives - as they work toward a clear purpose.

Each piece we’ve worked through to effectively lead our team members with a clear purpose will hopefully help you dial that in for everyone on your team. As you do this, I’m absolutely convinced that you’ll see a tremendous impact on the productivity and profitability within your area of responsibility - be that a small department or throughout your entire organization - and I believe you’ll quickly see how much it helps achieve your organizational purpose. That said, I’ll challenge you to keep a fair level of focus on the individuals in the process. As leaders working to achieve our company’s goals, we’d do well to balance that with how we can continue helping our employees succeed in the process - at work and in life - while they’re working toward a clear purpose!