What is your Leadership Purpose?

It doesn't matter if you're new to a leadership position or a grizzled veteran with decades in management; you must know your leadership purpose.?

If you're a long-time leader, we can assume you know your purpose, and this will act as a refresher for you but if you're new to a leadership role, let's look at what a leadership purpose is and help you define yours.?

Let's start with what it is not. Your leadership purpose is not your business's mission statement or corporate vision. It is not your company's strategic goal.?

Instead, your leadership purpose is yours and yours alone, although establishing and living by your leadership purpose will go a long way to achieving corporate goals and representing its values.

A leadership purpose is a culmination of your values, goals and how you view the world.?

It acts as your compass to shape your decisions and guide your actions, particularly in new or challenging waters as you navigate the business world, leading teams and companies.?

It allows consistency in developing and establishing business relationships, which is, at its core, the heart of leadership.?

We'll assume you don't currently have a leadership purpose, and we'll go through the steps to explain what makes a good one and how to establish yours.?

First, your leadership purpose is how you define yourself, and how you want to be seen by fellow leaders and the people you're responsible for guiding. Clarity lets others understand where you're going and decide whether to come along. Ambiguity makes their decision easier but likely not the decision you want.?

Before we start, think about the end of your career, and ask yourself these questions:

• How do you want to have led??
• What do you want colleagues to say about your leadership??
• How did your leadership make people feel??
• What accomplishments do you want to have achieved??

Give those questions serious contemplation throughout your career, as they may change but regularly reviewing them will let you know if you're on your path or need to change.?

A practical leadership purpose contains your theory about leadership. Your attitude towards the role of a leader, in general, helps you determine the type of leader you aspire to be. It defines how you view the role and demonstrates the values most important to you. These three come together to guide your actions as a leader.?

Start with your values. Which values do you want to present as a leader? Don't go overboard. We all value many positive ideals, but which two will be your focus??

If you're having trouble narrowing it down to two, a good technique is to create a list of 10 and rank them, you won’t ignore any of the values you believe in, but we're prioritizing the top two for our leadership purpose.

Now think about your goals and the things you intend to accomplish. Use the SMART method to compose them. After you've defined your goals, think about what actions are needed to achieve them and consider the two leadership values from your list.?

Are the two values you chose best to undertake the actions needed to achieve your goals? If not, go back to your list and switch as necessary. (See? We didn’t ignore your list.)

Now that you have your goals and values, it's time to consider how they impact your employees.?

Your role as a leader directly influences and affects those in your charge. Please consider the positive impact you want to have on other people.?

We've thought about your philosophy, values, goals, and the people we're leading; now it's time to make our first attempt at a leadership purpose statement.?

Be engaging; use inspiring words, as these will be with you for a long time, perhaps your entire career.?

Also, keep it tight. There is no minimum word count for your statement. It's best to be able to say it in one breath, but this is your statement use as many or as few words as you need to express your purpose fully.?

Ok, how did it go??

As I didn't want you to go alone, I wrote one too.?

"My leadership purpose is to freely share my knowledge and wisdom, to develop and prepare people for the next stage of their careers. They will have benefited for having been on my team regardless of how long they are under my purview."

It's not perfect, but it's a start.

How did your Leadership Purpose statement turn out???