“There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.” – Napoleon Hill
Everyone in organizational leadership, management, and behavior circles has been talking about the importance of purpose in the success and growth of a business, and it generally reflects the moral, virtue, and traditional practices of a firm (Lawton & Páez; 2015, Warwick & Burden, 2018). Jodi (2015) found that a business’s purpose was often expressed as its meaning or calling, broadening the scope of our understanding of purpose. One researcher attached critical action to purpose by finding it to be “the embodiment of an organization’s recognition that its relationship with its. . . stakeholders are interdependent” (Warwick & Burden, 2018, p. 15), making the purpose statement an overarching virtuous or moral statement of its leadership’s social responsibility rather than a moral tactic in the marketplace. These scholarly and practical observations suggest that purpose is more of an action than a statement and more of a guide than a rule while at the same time insisting that exceptional success and growth require a written understanding or purpose. If you want excellence in your organization, everyone lives under the umbrella of its purpose.
“The important thing is that men should have a purpose in life. It should be something useful, something good.” –Dalai Lama
There are more concrete reasons for having a fleshed-out purpose for your organization that increased growth. According to Jodi (2015), when individual workers, leaders, and followers are aligned with a mutually understood greater purpose, “there is a deep, almost spiritual, commitment to making the world a better place and helping the organization contribute to that” (p. 1). In addition to the increased commitment, purpose can add comfort, and feelings of professional and physical safety, often called wellness, and increase creativity, engagement, motivation, and positive actions (Jodi, 2015; Warwick & Burden, 2018). Practically, however, research has shown that if leadership does not skillfully manipulate the levels of purpose to increase creative output and wellness, a sense of comfort might slow an organization down (Jodi, 2015; Warwick & Burden, 2018). Therefore, leadership can use its greater purpose to advantage, wellness, comfort, growth, success, and engagement only if it monitors the needs and attitudes of the followers, making a symbiotic relationship necessary for excellence.
“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” –Viktor Frankl
One technique for successfully installing purpose in an organization is to use purposing, or teaching your workers how to engage with the organization’s purpose, in every activity they take (Warwick & Burden, 2018). In addition to purposing, teaching, and modeling empathy advances leader and follower success in following a purpose-driven work-life (Jodi, 2015). Jodi found that empathy also helps reduce the friction between analytical and social workers, giving an organization a better chance of meeting its purpose daily. Finally, managers and leaders have found that cycling through different aspects of the organization’s virtues and morals, rather than focusing on the entire statement, increases engagement and success while increasing inspiration, moral courage, creativity, and better acceptance of risk-taking through improved judgment (Lawton & Páez, 2015).
“Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.” ―John F. Kennedy
The purpose is critical to excellence, and excellence is critical to growth and sustained success. It increases wellness, creativity, moral judgment, courage, and role modeling. It can be installed by teaching workers and managers how to engage with the expressed purpose. Finally, a written purpose statement is not necessary, but having one makes it easier for micro and small businesses to get their leaders and followers in the same boat, paddling in the same direction, for the same reason, at the same time.
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