Putting Your Leadership Purpose to Work: Part 2

So, you’ve created a written leadership purpose designed to help you be a more effective leader and by now you’ve had a chance to follow the process from our last email, which helped ensure you are getting the most out of that powerful leadership tool for yourself. However, if you are like many people, you probably have kept your leadership purpose to yourself.

If you are one of the rare individuals that created your draft leadership purpose during the Executive Symposium and then went back to your organization and shared it with your team, congratulations! It’s evidence of advanced leadership maturity, and you have positioned yourself to get a key benefit from your purpose – that of others recognizing your desire to build your leadership capacity. Guess who benefits from great leaders and appreciates efforts to grow as a leader the most? You guessed it, your followers! But read on, there’s still useful information here for you even if you already shared your leadership purpose.

If you have not shared your leadership purpose, that’s ok, it’s natural. It can be a little intimidating to share that ideal way of leading with your team. In our experience, executives with a newly minted leadership purpose have an assortment of self-limiting thoughts that can get in the way of sharing it with others. Some examples are: “What if my team thinks I’m not even close to leading that way?” “What if my team thinks I’m being too idealistic?” “What if my team doesn’t like it?” Our response is always, “What if your team sees you as working to be the best leader you can be for them?” One benefit of taking your leadership purpose public is your team will see you striving to be a better leader. After all, who wants to be led by a bad leader?

Another benefit of sharing your leadership purpose with others is it prompts people to be looking for that approach to leadership from you. This makes it more likely they will see and appreciate it when that happens. It also helps hold you accountable for growing into that leadership purpose, knowing others can hold you to it. This helps make the application of your leadership purpose a natural leadership behavior through the power of habit. 

The most important action step you can take with your written leadership purpose is taking it public! To help ease the discomfort that may still be there in doing so, here are some things to consider:

• Let your team know you’re sharing your leadership purpose in an effort to be a better leader for them and the organization. Most of the time, your team will genuinely appreciate your efforts.
• Be intentional in asking your team to help you live up to that leadership purpose by asking them to point out not only when you’re off course, but also when you’re on course. Assure them there will be no negative repercussions for pointing out the off course behavior – and it goes without saying it’s critical you abide by that agreement without exception.
• Do regular check-ins with your team, perhaps during regularly scheduled team meetings – ask “How am I doing?” Get feedback and use that feedback to continue to grow and learn. 

Read Putting Your Leadership Purpose to Work: Part 3 and find out how to build employee engagement in your organization. Visit the BB&T Leadership Institute website for more information.

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