Leading with a Purpose – Basics of leadership

In my last article I wrote about “why old horses can’t win new races”. Today I would like to go back to basics of any leadership and discuss about the purpose in depth so to make the leadership and leading process a transition “from where we are now to where we really want to be”.

Firstly let’s understand the word purpose properly and talk about some of the great leaders and how purpose helped them to lead effectively?

Leading with Purpose can be defined as the reason why something is intend to be done, one’s goal for some one or something (corporation), it’s a lifetime work somebody wants to do for better world without any personal gain and interest. It’s not only having a great purpose will help the leader, it’s the action he takes with that purpose, the values, principles, ethics and path which he chooses to achieve that purpose will help the leaders to lead effectively.  I suppose Mahatma Gandhi the man whom we call Baapu defined purpose fantastically. He says “The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly, act rightly. The soul must languish when we give all our thought to the body.

The leaders of today does not know the meaning of purpose why should they lead? they have wrong purposes in place hence they fail. Failures of these leaders who lead people are affecting the core leadership and some times to the leader who has good purpose to lead. We have ignored the importance purpose for a long time, we think objective, and Vision are the similar to purpose? A Business leader might have a vision to make the organization leader in a particular industry, but does that mean that he has got the right purpose? Not at all…

The work of Greenleaf (1977) brought to the fore the notion of Servant Leadership: ‘standing for what is good and right even when it is not in the financial interest of the organization. . .Greenleaf proposed that providing meaningful work for employees is as important as providing a quality product or service for the customer’ (Yukl, 2006: 420).

Frankl (2004) argues that purpose is central to a good human life and that happiness comes from fidelity to a worthy purpose; while the absence or disconnection with, or perceived worthless nature of a purpose will lead to unhappiness within an individual. This is arguably the central cornerstone which ‘leadership as purpose’ is seeking to build from.

In their highly influential best-seller, Built to Last, Collins and Porras (1994) observed that ‘an enduring sense of purpose’ was the most significant cause that appeared to explain why just a few companies maintained an outstanding performance over such a long period compared to their competitors. While there has been limited scholarly attention to the explicit notion of purpose in leadership studies, this is one loud and pervasive exception. In addition to emphasizing the importance of long-term versus short-term business success, it has highlighted and promoted to a global audience the salience and importance of purpose within leadership. This message resonates impressively with the practising managers with whom we have worked throughout the world who pay homage to the influence that this book and it sequel (Collins, 2001) has had upon their thinking about leadership.

I m sure we are aware of many leaders in recent past who lead people with wrong purpose, our politically leaders almost 90% of them don’t know what is the purpose? They can never define purpose properly hence they don’t know how to lead. Every time a country, state, community or a village fails there is always a leader solely responsible for failure. Our leaders of today, lead people without right purpose, remember you can never lead people if you have wrong purpose.

Here are some the real time examples to define purpose in depth so to understand it well. Martin Luther King had a great a purpose to lead people, he fought like a leader and he served people till his last breath. Mahatma Gandhi a hero who fought for our independence like leader with his unconventional Non-violence. Jameshetji Tata the man behind industrialization of India, he is haled and called as Father of Indian Industry never offered bribe. The list never ends, these people lead with right purpose for their country, for the people.

Leaders of today never can understand the purpose correctly hence they deviate from the core principles, values. We have thousand leaders in India, who have done that and lead people for their own interest and self gain. Satyam fiasco was an Eye opener for modern Indians, Rajiv Gandhi Bofers fiasco was never forgotten until today. Innocent people died in Bhopal, every day we can never sleep peacefully because our leaders.

Leading with purpose I mean, Leading people, society, country, organization, team, community with an intention to better the situation without personal gain. Leading for a better world, in recent times in India we fought against corruption. Anna Hazare doubtlessly led the people. He had the right purpose in place; he had the principles, values he carried almost for decades. We all supported him because we thought he was leading with a purpose for betterment of society, as per the recent report. We can hardly find an officer who is not corrupt.

In this article I would request people of India to not to vote some one because you know, think whether he can lead people effectively, think about the purpose? “Nothing can happen to you without your consent”. Everything which is happening in our country we are responsible, we are the reason and we must find a solution as well. It’s our first priority to find leaders who lead with purpose of making this world a better place to live.