4 Steps Toward Becoming A More Purposeful Leader

The more I live, the more it becomes clear that living with purpose is the key to a meaningful life at work and home. Not surprisingly, the most effective and inspirational leaders are deliberate about defining their purpose and aligning their daily actions to that purpose.

Purposeful leadership provides many benefits for the leader and those they lead, including increased levels of motivation and well-being, consistency for those they lead, clarity during complexity, and establishing healthy boundaries. Unfortunately, too few leaders take time to clearly define and continually reflect on how they are living their unique leadership purpose. This is a mistake because purposeful leadership allows leaders to bring their best selves to challenging situations while also contributing to organizational success and employee well-being.

4 Steps Towards Becoming A More Purposeful Leader?

1) Defining Your Personal Purpose And Values

Our life purpose is at the heart of who we are. Our values are the guiding principles we will not compromise for short-term gain. Our purpose is our "why," and our values are the "how" for living our most meaningful life. It's about living a life with intention and meaning. Our purpose and values act as a guide for how we live and work.

Defining Personal Purpose

Defining our personal purpose involves introspection and reflection on what truly matters to us. Asking ourselves questions such as:

• What brings you fulfillment?
• What impact do you want to make in the world?
• What causes or issues resonate deeply with you?
• What legacy do you want to leave behind?
• How would you define a life well-lived??

Defining Core Values

Our values encompass our foundational beliefs, which dictate our behavior and guide decisions. Life is usually good when our actions and decisions match our values – we are satisfied and content. But when our behaviors and decisions don't align with our values, we feel discomfort because we are out of alignment with our essential beliefs.

Below are four questions that can guide us in identifying and understanding our core values:

1. What values must you have in your life to feel fulfilled?
2. What types of values keep showing up in your life?
3. What are the values that are core to the way you do your job, maintain relationships, and lead others?
4. What values challenge and stretch you to be a better version of yourself?

Being clear about our purpose and core values is important because they should serve as our compass, helping us navigate life's complexities and make choices that align with our authentic selves.

2) ?Defining Your Leadership Purpose

There is a passage from?Alice In Wonderland?by Lewis Carroll that says, "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there." This simple quote illustrates the importance of knowing your desired destination. This concept is especially true for those in leadership positions. Purposeful leadership may sound nebulous, but when we witness leaders who understand and live their unique purpose, we clearly see the positive impact.?

A leader's purpose explains their "why" of leadership and should be a North Star that provides clarity and direction when navigating the complex situations that come with leadership. A leadership purpose answers the following questions.

3) Understanding Your Fewest Most Important Leadership Responsibilities

President Eisenhower said , "I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent." Too often, leaders spend the most time working on the least important things and the least time on the most important things.?

It is easy for leaders to feel overwhelmed by having to respond to the constant barrage of urgent issues that consume most of their time and energy, leaving them scrambling to find "extra" time to try to achieve the most important responsibilities of their role. This leadership dilemma often sounds like, "I know this is important, but I am already spread too thin and..."

• I spend all of my time in meetings.
• My employees are always at my door.
• Our customers are constantly coming to me with …
• Leadership is continually giving us new projects without new resources.
• I have 500 unread emails in my inbox.

Understanding the distinction between urgent and strategic is important for a leader to be successful. The challenge is that urgent activities demand our time because they are more visible, immediate, and louder than their strategic tasks.?

Because there will always be urgent activities trying to steal our time, leaders must schedule and protect time for working on their most strategic responsibilities for long-term organizational success.?

4) Daily Actions That Align To Our Values, Goals, And Purpose

In our most difficult moments, our ability to understand how we feel and choose how we act will ultimately define our success. Our behaviors are always a direct reflection of our "in the moment" intentions we bring to the situation. Learning to align our immediate intentions with our values and longer-term goals allows us to choose our best actions versus reacting out of fear, uncertainty, loss of control, frustration, etc.

Taking time to acknowledge our goals and set our best intentions before engaging in our challenging situation helps shift the focus off our barriers, perceived limitations, or threats and spotlights what we hope to achieve.

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Answering these two questions enables you to focus on your best intentions during your most difficult situations.

1. What are my best long-term goals for this person or group?
2. Based on my answer, how do I want to show up for my next interaction with this person or group?

Setting our mindset to align with our longer-term purpose and values can completely flip how we engage others during our most challenging and charged situations.

Purposeful Leadership Matters

Although purposeful leadership can seem somewhat of a "soft" concept to many people, it is much more tangible than it seems. Employees want to work for leaders that clearly and positively impact the world. Purposeful leaders create an environment where employees experience meaning, community, consistency, and increased productivity. How are you aligning your daily actions and decisions with your leadership purpose?

NOTE: Tony Gambill previously published this article with Forbes Leadership Strategy on 03/06/24.

? Learn more about my bio, content, and services at www.clearviewleaders.com

? Read more of my articles on Self-Leadership and Leading Others at my Forbes Leadership Strategy Homepage

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:?Tony Gambill is the President of ClearView Leadership, an innovative leadership and talent development consulting firm helping organizations, executives, and managers bring practical skills to Self-Leadership and Leading Others. He is the author of, Getting It Right When It Matters Most: Self-Leadership for Work & Life .