AMPLIFY  VOL. 37, NO. 8
  

Purpose is big business. Bestsellers, master classes, and apps teach us “how to purpose.” Why? The short answer is because we need it. Humanity faces multiple crossroads. Torn between old-fashioned consumption and new-age guilt about privilege while witnessing heart-wrenching devastation from extreme climate events and the depletion of Mother Nature beyond its regenerative capacities, leaders are increasingly turning to purpose as a moral compass.

But do most leaders “have” purpose? If so, how do they “hold” it as they traverse various levels (individuals, teams, organizations, partnerships, sectors, regions, countries, continents) in their quest for success? The goal of the seven articles in the first installment of this two-part Amplify series is to demystify leaders’ journey to purpose.

Purpose-driven leadership begins with humans like you and me who seek to harness our humanity to create better ways of being and doing.¹

Then what?

Let’s walk the proverbial mile alongside 13 authors from Brazil, Canada, Germany, the UK, and the US willing to share their best practices about finding and following purpose, scaling it up and down, and translating it across problems and settings, all while staying out of purpose traps. We will discover how to create purpose for oneself, as well as how to create contagion of purpose, communities of purpose, and economies of purpose.

The focus of this Amplify issue is detecting and connecting purpose at various levels across the lifespan of purpose-driven leadership. The main takeaway is that having and holding purpose helps leaders shift from surviving to thriving in an inequitable world.

Purpose Is Hot

The long answer is that purpose is hot. From thought-leading forums to top consultancies to elite schools, we collectively turn toward purpose to search for better ways to do business. Purpose offers blueprints for organizing that some hope will answer many questions or at least offer a counterbalance to a growing distrust in alternative forms of governance. Is purpose-driven leadership better? There is growing evidence that it can be.

This issue features a series of rigorous academic research studies that have systematically reviewed how purpose (aka calling, meaning, values) has profoundly shaped not only how we organize our activities and societies but also our beliefs about leadership.^2,3

Of course, many generations of leaders have come of age and peaked power without explicit articulation of purpose. Many individuals who inhabited organizations sanitized of purpose are learning afresh what purpose means.⁴ Incoming cohorts question what purpose is and why for-profit firms need it.⁵ But at the end of a hectic day, most of us prefer leaders and companies that have and hold purpose to those that don’t.

There are several explanations for this collective preference, but two stand out. First, as we speak and share purpose across many types and sizes of organizations, we reinforce one another’s identities as keepers and drivers of purpose.⁶ Second, as we activate one another’s purpose, we can see farther and walk further together.⁷ The effects of identity-based and imagination-based mechanisms are mutually reinforcing: when leaders regard one another through a lens of purpose, they feel empowered to challenge the status quo and change the systems that no longer serve us. As purposeful leaders enact the change we want to see in our world, our identities mirror and mimic theirs, and vice versa.

If you’d like to take a shortcut through the growing pile of outstanding evidence, embark on a quick thought experiment. When you think about the leader you admire the most, can you quickly tell if they had and held purpose? Did their purpose help them enact a future significantly different from the past? Would you attribute the change they made to having and holding purpose? You can repeat this experiment a few times and try it out on unsuspecting peers. Although purpose has, until very recently, lurked undetected beneath stern statements of rationality and profitability, it comes through in other ways. Perhaps one of the best ways to tell whether a leader scaffolds purpose is by witnessing the widening circles of those who follow their example.

In This Issue

Our first piece, by Hannes Leroy, Johannes Claeys, Mirko Benischke, and Daan Stam, features a powerful component of the leadership development programs at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, the Netherlands: the “I Will” statement, which connects individuals’ personal ambitions with the challenges of today’s society. The methodology of the “I Will” statement recently won the 2024 Academic of Management Award for the Best Professional Development Workshop in the Organizational Behavior Division. The authors share three sequential steps of scaffolding purpose, inviting us to move from “I Am” (discover purpose) to “I Will” (commit to purpose) and arrive at “We Will” (engage others with your purpose).

Next, Bill Fox delves deeper into this “I Am” by sharing his journey to purpose. The inner leader’s journey is all about leadership of oneself. Fox shifts our attention from what leaders do to who leaders strive to become in the greater service of humanity. By describing his 13 steps to scaffolding purpose (including principles he extracted from his journey, personal experiences, and pointed questions for the readers), Fox invites us to awaken our own inner leader. We invite you to ponder his final question: “How will you awaken your inner leader to forge a future that reflects not just your own potential and purpose but the collective potential of all humanity?”

In our third article, Michael Messenger takes us a step further, to “I Will.” Messenger explains how faith and calling weaved a purposeful path that took him from a partner at a leading law practice to president and CEO of the charitable organization World Vision Canada. He reminds leaders that a sense of calling is not limited to social justice activists or nonprofit leaders. All leaders follow their calling when they see their jobs as a way to align their values, vocation, and beliefs with a deep, purpose-driven commitment to a mission, a passion for their work, and a desire to positively impact the world. Messenger reminds us that commitment grows when purpose gets deeply personal, stating: “My faith informs my calling and thereby amplifies my sense of purpose.” What amplifies your sense of purpose?

Next, Philippa White, bestselling author of Return on Humanity: Leadership Lessons from All Corners of the World, lifts us toward “We Will.” White challenges today’s leaders to outgrow the past, stating that “companies are working as if it’s still the Industrial Age.” As leaders come to care less about how much money a company makes and more about how they make that money, they discover many returns to purpose, including better relationships with employees and communities. How would being at your purpose today (Fox’s “I Am”) or committing to purpose today (Messenger’s “I Will”) create returns for the employees and communities on your path?

Anica Zeyen then explores some of these returns to purpose. As one’s invisible purpose yields visible returns, many others may be inspired to follow suit. Zeyen explains how leaders can catch and pass on their purpose by recognizing and revealing their vulnerability. The article describes how the six protagonists showcased in Zeyen’s documentary Invisible experienced purpose contagion in their own lives and looks at how featuring the documentary can facilitate similar ripples in educational institutions, consulting firms, and policy circles. As a disabled academic, activist, and documentary maker, Zeyen’s purpose contagion can reach and serve 1.3 billion people with disabilities worldwide. How far and fast could your returns to purpose spread if you pivoted on invisible vulnerabilities?

In our sixth piece, Dee Corrigan, Lauren Elliott, Gethin Hine, and James McCarthy highlight The Purpose-in-Practice Community (hosted by A Blueprint for Better Business, a UK-based charity). Together, more than 200 business leaders are charting a path to putting purpose at the heart of business. Their article coaches leaders on how to drive purpose, how to become a purpose driver, and how to steer clear of purpose traps on their lifelong journey to success. The authors share key practices and set guideposts in the journey toward purpose.

Coro Strandberg closes the issue by urging us to radically reimagine the purpose of business. She calls for “social purpose” and blueprints the purpose economy. The article offers multiple strategies (identifying, consulting, and engaging the social purpose community; deploying purpose economy levers of change; and providing tools and resources for the business community and ecosystem actors) that can help regions and nations begin the process of architecting the purpose economy. Strandberg showcases the Canadian Purpose Economy Project, which aims to accelerate Canada’s transition to the purpose economy and explains how ecosystem builders can help social purpose companies start, transition, thrive, and grow.

Purpose as Property

As you enjoy the richness of these seven articles, we invite you to ponder this fundamental question: Who holds, experiences, and determines purpose?”⁸

Employing the metaphor of property goes beyond the intuitively appealing verbs (to have and to hold) and gives even the most purposeful leaders something more to work on. If we just take purpose as something we get to own and yield (as helpful it may be for our own identities and imaginations), are we leaving enough room for others to have and to hold theirs? If we eagerly give purpose to others, do we leave time and space to craft our own journeys to purpose?

We are excited about the levity of purpose when property gets shared up and down levels of hierarchy or ripples laterally through contagion effects, heartened by the power of communities of purpose and enthralled by the possibility that tomorrow’s economies of purpose will create the returns on humanity many of us need and want.

The second part of this two-part Amplify series, “Scaffolding Purpose in Times of Polycrisis,” will explore how purpose is scoped, set, and grounded when much of what we have come to take for granted shifts suddenly and will help leaders get ready for the unexpected.

References

¹ White, Philippa J. Return on Humanity: Leadership Lessons from All Corners of the World. Practical Inspiration Publishing, 2024.

² Chua, Nathania, et al. “Purpose in Management Research: Navigating a Complex and Fragmented Area of Study.” Academy of Management Annals, Vol. 18, No. 2, July 2024.

³ George, Gerard, et al. “Purpose in the For-Profit Firm: A Review and Framework for Management Research.” Journal of Management, Vol. 49, No. 6, April 2021.

⁴ Jasinenko, Anna, and Josephina Steuber. “Perceived Organizational Purpose: Systematic Literature Review, Construct Definition, Measurement, and Potential Employee Outcomes.” Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 60, No. 6, July 2022.

⁵ Henderson, Rebecca, and Eric Van den Steen. “Why Do Firms Have ‘Purpose’? The Firm’s Role as a Carrier of Identity and Reputation.” American Economic Review, Vol. 105, No. 5, May 2015.

⁶ Pratt, Michael Gerard, and Luke N. Hedden. “Accounts and Accountability: On Organizational Purpose, Organizational Identity, and Meaningful Work.” Strategy Science, Vol. 8, No. 7, March 2023.

⁷ Rindova, Violina P., and Luis L. Martins. “Moral Imagination, the Collective Desirable, and Strategic Purpose.” Strategy Science, Vol. 8, No. 2, March 2023.

⁸ Chua et al (see 2).