WHAT IS THE ROLE OF A LEADER?

When I work with Leaders, a common question we explore is what is their core role? My response is always the same, regardless of their industry and their own professional journey. Of course, there are many functions that a Founder, a CEO, and their executive team must manage on a daily basis – but in my view their core role is to connect and maintain an employees’ connection to an organisation’s purpose.

We all need to know how our organisation adds value to customers lives – our why. But more importantly, we all need to know we each individually contribute to creating value. Knowing how our daily actions drive value, helps us prioritise and organise our workloads – without needing to be told. It allows us to focus, to make decisions, and confidently lead from our own level, in our own roles.

In my book, Purpose, Passion & Performance – How systems for leadership, culture and strategy drive the 3Ps of high performing organisations, I explore this idea, where an organisation needs to be clear on purpose, and where leaders connect people to purpose everyday by setting standards, normalising feedback, and coaching strengths. These behaviours become daily habits, engrained in the way leaders work with teams to activate potential and harness growth.

LEADERSHIP fuels PURPOSE – Chapter 4, p45

Leaders do the work of inspiring high performance by keeping people connected to the purpose of the organisation.

The purpose is the organisation’s reason for being – it is the problem you solve or the need you fulfil in the market. Unless your organisation serves a meaningful purpose, it ceases to be relevant. The real power of purpose comes through maintaining the collective connection to it. Simon Sinek, international speaker and author of the highly influential book Start with Why, says it best, telling us that ‘people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it’. This is true for internal customers as well as external customers.

Unless leaders continually create context to connect people to their purpose within the team, the team to their purpose within the business, and the business to its purpose within the market, the power of purpose to motivate and inspire people becomes lost.

To read more about the systems of Leadership, Culture and Strategy that drive high performance organisations – pick up a copy of my book Purpose, Passion & Performance – How systems for leadership, culture and strategy drive the 3Ps of high performing organisations – or download the first chapter FREE – below.

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