Finding your Leadership Purpose

Did you consciously choose to become a leader or is it something that came about as a result of progress in your career?

Leadership is a privilege but also an enormous responsibility. How do we become the very best leaders we can be? I believe truly understanding our Leadership Purpose really helps ground us as well as guides us on this journey. Finding our Leadership Purpose takes reflection, time & space to think deeply and a desire to really find out why we are in Leadership.

Questions to prompt your thinking:

Why am I in Leadership?

Whom do I serve?

What legacy do I want to leave behind?

What impact do I want to have on others?

Which leaders do I admire and what might their Leadership Purpose be?

What values are important to me in my role as a Leader?

Therefore, what is my Leadership purpose?

Defining your leadership purpose:

I have facilitated these reflections and conversations with many leaders and experience has shown me that this is not an easy exercise.

It will take time so don’t be surprised if it doesn’t emerge immediately. Reflect deeply and give it time, it will emerge when it is right. You can then use the questions below to see if it really resonates with you.

It is sometimes hard to differentiate between what we do as leaders and our why i.e. why are we in leadership. Let both emerge and then hone in on the “why” vs the “what”.

“Purpose is what inspires you to get up in the morning.” – Betsy Smith

Questions to test your leadership purpose against:

-???????? Is it a true “why”?

-???????? Is it simple, succinct and easy to remember?

-???????? Is it timeless?

-???????? Does it inspire me?

-???????? Can it guide my leadership decisions?

-???????? Will it guide my leadership actions?

-???????? Am I proud of it?

-???????? Can I hold true to it?

-???????? Can I hold myself accountable against it?

-???????? Am I prepared to get feedback on it?

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My personal leadership purpose, which took many years to emerge, is “To help others BE more”. I knew it was right when it rung true both for me as a Leader as well as for the work I do. It is my why, or reason for being in Leadership. It is also closely aligned to my “Ikigai” or my reason for being / my purpose.

Defining your organisation’s purpose and helping your teams define theirs are both also extremely powerful, more on that in future articles.

#leadership #purpose #why #legacy #leadershippurpose #anchor

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What you do in your life is only ever as good as why you do it. That why, or purpose, is defined in almost all dictionaries as “the reason for existence.”Unknown