When you are put in a leadership position, it can be quite overwhelming at first. After all, there are few things as disorienting as being a co-worker to someone one day and then being their boss the next. When this happens, it is likely that you want to do everything you possibly can to be the best leader your team has ever had. On the other hand, this can be an exhausting task when you think about all of your other duties and responsibilities. The key, however, is finding your purpose and making sure that it bleeds into the way you do your job and the way you lead your team every single day. Finding your purpose is important because it can change your entire perspective on your job, of your subordinates, and generally make you and those around you more productive. In this post, we are going to focus on what it means to be a purpose-driven leader and how you can do so to ensure the success of yourself and all of those around you. Continue reading below to learn more.
Your Purpose Is Bigger Than Your Personal Goals
It’s not uncommon for someone to say that a certain job was meant for a certain person. When a person finds themselves in a situation like this when they are doing what they were born to do, however, does this mean that they should simply stop getting better or stop even trying? Does this mean that they have hit their pinnacle?
When we talk about purpose, we talk about the natural flow of our gifts and how they help to serve and benefit those around us. Many times it is easy to simply ignore this calling, but it is always there, whether we acknowledge it or not. Whether or not you are able to take advantage of it and truly manifest it in a productive way, however, entirely depends on whether or not you are open to it. Purpose is something that never goes away, but it does have to be channeled to truly make a difference. So how can you do this?
Bringing Individual and Organization Purpose
For many businesses, performance is their purpose, or so they think. They spend so much time focusing on how people individually perform and therefore how the company performs as a whole that they entirely miss the big picture. The funny thing is, when you focus on something other than performance as your purpose, the performance will naturally follow. Sort of ironic, right?
When you help people to connect with their individual and collective purpose, both cultural and financial value is added to a company. If your company works to help local businesses, then THAT is your purpose, not hitting goals or making a certain amount of revenue. If you run a landscaping company, your purpose is not to hit a certain quota each summer season, it is to ensure that your community has a trusted company they can rely on for all things that concern their lawn and landscaping. Within that, the individual purpose of other people in your company could be to provide superior customer service or to simply be a good listener to a customer who needs a shoulder to cry on. Regardless of what the purpose is, when it works it works because people are using their natural abilities and talents to excel at their current job. It works because there is passion for what is being developed by your employees. So how can each person better contribute their talent to help form the big picture?
Filling Your Life With Purpose
Is there someone in your life who you truly look up to? Is there someone who you have seen work endlessly to achieve their goals? Why is it that you admire this person? Whether you know it or not, it is likely that they have a purpose and they have lived their life with it. When a person cares about what they do, they get results and they get respect. If you are about individual members of your team, if you care about your combined mission, if you do your job each day making genuine connections, communicating with humor and empathy, you are living your life with purpose. If you want to embolden your employees, lift them up and prove to them that they are more capable than they ever knew, you are being a purposeful leader. Each day should be another opportunity for you to spread your purpose and your passion to all those who you work with as you attempt to instill the same passion in them and help them to find their own individual purpose. So let’s talk about how you can make this happen.
Act Purposefully
For the most part, every person on the planet has even the tiniest bit of intuition. This instinct is one that can help you to determine what your purpose is. When you do this, you can begin to align your commitments with your purpose. This is when you will fall into the sweet spot. Take steps towards what you believe your destiny is by using your creativity and your drive. Before you know it, you will be making your mark.
Find A Team Purpose
Knowing your personal purpose is an important step. However, in order for you to be a true leader, finding your team purpose can transform your entire enterprise. You can do this by determining the gifts in others who work alongside you, the same way that you determined your own gifts. Once you do this, you can uncover what your team’s core purpose is and what sets them apart from other teams or even other companies. Think about why your team exists and what they should be trying to achieve collectively. A good way to do this may even be to meet with each team member individually and ask them outright, ‘What do you believe your purpose is?” Once you discover the answers to this, find pragmatic ways to help each person and the team as a whole to exhibit purpose in the day to day.
The Path Is Not The Goal
It can be difficult to not simply adopt other people’s views on what your purpose is. Many people often will take what others think of them and run with it, because that is simply easier than doing the self-reflection that is required to truly know what your purpose is. Conversely, they may look at popular trends, spiritual trends, or other theories to develop what their own purpose is. This is not finding your purpose but is known as mistaking the path for the goal. Think about how your gifts can serve and then find your own way to use them. Using someone else’s methods will not truly help you to adapt your purpose for your own use.
Focus On Being A Servant
One of the most imperative parts of being a leader is to serve those who you work with and who work for you. There is no purpose if you are not using it to be a servant. Therefore, channel your gifts and then expand how you use them constantly. Each day you should be working to use your individual purpose to better the lives of those around you.
Bring Purpose To All Domains
Don’t simply focus on using your purpose at work. In order to be effective, you’re going to have to be purposeful in all facets of your daily life. This will become easier with time because as you begin to understand your gifts more deeply, your purpose will also be clearer and acting with it in mind will almost become second nature.
Learn From Failing
Everyone fails. This is not a necessarily bad thing, however. Failure causes us to question ourselves and focus on how we can improve. You’re not going to be your best self every day. That is simply not possible. When failure does occur, it is best to view it as a learning tool. This will bring you closer to living purposefully in the end.
Better Yourself
Many people who are in leadership positions feel as though they have no way to better themselves because they have already reached their pinnacle. If you want to live with purpose, you have to be hungry to learn more. If this is something you are interested in(and we think you should be), you may want to consider enrolling in one of the leadership courses we offer at the Professional Development Center at Glendale Community College. Knowing that you are hungry to learn will rub off on your employees, pressing them to seek knowledge as well. Check out our course catalog today to find the perfect class for you to enroll in.