Purpose driven leadership means your work and your reason for doing it point the same direction, and your team can see it. It shows up in where the calendar actually goes, not in a statement on a wall. Purpose is the fuel that gets you through the call you do not want to make.
I learned this through a thousand cuts. If you do not have a purpose, nothing feels right and there is always a gap.
When I retired from the Army I was excited to start the next career, and I assumed it would work like the Army. Grind it out. Everybody focused on the same thing. Twenty-five years at one company, a pension and a gold watch at the end. I could not have been more wrong.
Here is what took me years to figure out, and what I now watch founders and CEOs run into from the other direction.
What is purpose driven leadership?
It is leading from a reason that exists outside the paycheck, and being clear enough about that reason that the people around you can repeat it.
Mine is one sentence: create a legacy of leaders who are changing the world. I never get tired of saying it. It is my driving force and it decides what I take on.
The test is not whether you can write one. Anybody can write one. The test is whether your week looks like it.
What happens when you lead without one?
You chase the number, and the number moves.
When I took the uniform off, I was no longer surrounded by people who shared a common purpose with me. In the corporate world I found it was all about me and making a few dollars more. Money was the only incentive, and I worked out fairly quickly that if money is what drives me I will never be happy, because there is never enough.
Big bonus, new truck, except the other guy's truck is nicer. So chase more, make more, repeat. One trip to a resort a year. If I made more I could travel more, but to make more I do not have time to travel more. Round and round.
I was missing the thing nobody talked about. It was not until I left the corporate world and started Tribe and Purpose that I started to understand there is more to life than the paycheck and working seven thirty to five every day. For those first several years, coaching rugby kept me in the game. As I understood more about purpose, I shifted the effort beyond rugby, and Tribe and Purpose became the way I fulfill it.
What changed was not the hours. It was that the time card disappeared. When you are pursuing your purpose your time is unlimited, because the work is who you are. The void of grinding out forty hours goes away.
Your team can tell which one you are running on. So can your best people, which is usually why they leave.
How do you find your purpose?
You find it by paying attention to where your effort already goes when nobody is paying you for it, then writing the shortest true sentence you can and testing it against your calendar.
- List the work you do that you would still do unpaid. Not the hobby. The work. For me that was coaching and it was sharing what I know.
- Ask who it is for. Purpose that points only at you is a goal. Purpose points at somebody else.
- Write it in one sentence you would say out loud to a stranger. If it takes a paragraph, it is a mission statement and it will not survive a hard Tuesday.
- Check it against last week's calendar. Where the time actually went is the honest answer about what you believe.
- Cut the one thing that pulls hardest against it. There is always one, and you already know what it is.
- Say it to people. Purpose you keep private does not recruit anyone, and it does not hold you to anything.
A friend of mine once described a vision someone had of him walking a path with demons on either side, occasionally on the path itself. The demons reached out and grabbed at him and tried to pull him off it, but as long as he kept moving forward they could not stop him. If a demon stood on the path, he fought it only long enough to keep going.
We all have a path. Sometimes it is well groomed and obvious and sometimes it is not, and it is still your path. The demons are the obstacles that have to be overcome, and those you deal with. The problem starts when you try to fight all of them. When you stop moving to face the demon on your left, you are no longer moving, and that demon wins no matter how hard you fight, because it is keeping you off the path. The ones that are not on your path are noise. You can swipe them away. They are grabbing at you. You are the one who lets them stop you.
Does knowing your purpose make anything easier?
No. It makes your life harder, and that is the point.
Purpose is the thing that shifts you from talking about what you want to be into doing it. It gets you up in the morning. It pushes you to make the phone call, submit the proposal, spend the money, take the risk.
Then you think, so all I need is clarity and resolve and life gets easy? Yes and no. Knowing your purpose makes nothing easy. It is the thing you are willing to put the hard work into. There is nothing easy about living in pursuit of it. It is much easier to sit around the house and be a mouth-breathing oxygen thief.
The world is full of people who spend an entire life going through the motions, talking about everything they want to accomplish and never getting close. You get to decide not to be that person. You get to cut your own trail. That is the freedom we have in our own minds, and nobody can take it.
Why does a leader without purpose work so hard and produce so little?
Because effort without direction is just motion. I have a windmill on the property and I was watching it one night with almost no wind, turning slowly, adjusting to face whatever breeze showed up.
I do not want to be a windmill. A windmill is the ultimate shiny object chaser. Whichever way the wind blows, it turns. Five minutes later the wind shifts and it turns again, and back again, working hard the whole time, spinning the blades no matter the direction. That is no way to go through life.
If a windmill describes your company, stop and choose a direction. When you know your purpose you have a direction all the time. A man who knows his purpose is not working his tail off in every direction. He uses the wind to get where he is going, even when the wind is in his face. A man with no purpose spins in all directions and produces nothing.
Be the captain of your sailboat and sail to your port. Where that port is, and how you navigate to it, is what I get into in leadership vision and finding your North Star.
How do you know if you are actually spending time in your purpose?
Look at what you gave up, not at what you said.
Here is one I am still sore about. Ms. Suzanne babysits our youngest grandson two days a week. One Tuesday she left her kit bag sitting on our bed, an hour-plus drive away. We decided to meet in Castle Rock after my Steel Men Tribe call, so I could hand off the bag, have a coffee with her and see our grandson.
On the way there a meeting reminder popped up. I had completely forgotten I scheduled a call in that window the night before. Good soldier that I am, I jumped on it. Thirty minutes, on Zoom. I pulled into the parking lot and stayed on the call. Ms. Suzanne walked up pushing the stroller and stood there smiling while I kept talking. She turned the stroller around so he could see me, or really so I could see him. I stayed on the call. She got her bag out of the truck and they left for Denver. I was still sitting there on the call.
It was a fifteen-minute window. I will never get it back. Would the guy on the call have minded if I said I needed to cut it short to see my grandson? Absolutely not. When he reads this he will call me and give me grief for the choice I made, the same way I would to him.
Where we put our time is how we measure our lives, and the most important thing in our lives is our relationships. When we say one thing is important and then spend the time somewhere else, we are lying to ourselves. Guard your time with your strongest defenses.
There is a related trap on the other side, which is measuring the wrong thing. During a podcast recording I caught myself wondering how many bottles of whiskey it takes to be known as the whiskey words guy, and how many cigars that would require. The truth is it does not matter. I am not doing it for the notoriety. I am doing it because what I do and say helps somebody. I do not need thousands of followers to tell me it worked. Somewhere, someone watches a video and says that is exactly what I needed today. I do not have to know it happened. I believe it does.
What does purpose have to do with hope?
Purpose is the fuel that creates hope, and hope is what turns into vision. You cannot have one without the other.
Hope can also be dangerous. Admiral Stockdale, who received the Medal of Honor, said the men who did not survive the Hanoi prison camp were the optimists. They kept believing they would be released by Christmas, then by Easter, then by the next date. When it did not happen, they fell, and they lost hope. They were hoping for something outside their control. No amount of planning or action on their part could produce it, and because that hope was the thing keeping them going, losing it took everything.
Hope is a beautiful thing as long as you understand that when you do not get what you hoped for, you adjust and build the next plan and the next hope. That is the discipline. Know your purpose, and create hope in your life from something you can actually act on.
Where to start
Write the sentence. One line, out loud, to somebody who will remember you said it.
Then open last week's calendar and mark every block that served it. The gap between the sentence and the calendar is the work.
If you want help closing that gap, one-to-one coaching is where we do this work directly, and the story of how Tribe and Purpose got here is the longer version of what is on this page. If the thing you are missing is a room full of men doing the same work, that is the Steel Men Tribe.
Do this work with other men doing it too
The Steel Men Tribe is a brotherhood of men who hold each other to the standard they set for themselves.
See the Steel Men TribeFrequently asked questions
What is purpose driven leadership?
It means your work and your reason for doing it point the same direction, and the people around you can repeat that reason back. It shows up in where the calendar actually goes rather than in a statement on a wall, and it is the fuel that gets a leader through the calls nobody wants to make.
How do you find your purpose?
Start with the work you would still do unpaid, then ask who it is for, because purpose that points only at you is a goal. Write it as one sentence you would say out loud to a stranger, then check it against last week's calendar. Where your time actually went is the honest answer about what you believe.
Does knowing your purpose make life easier?
No. It makes it harder, because purpose is the thing you are willing to do the hard work for. It is much easier to go through the motions and talk about what you plan to accomplish. What purpose gives you is direction, not comfort.
Why do some leaders work hard and produce nothing?
Because effort without direction is motion. A windmill turns whichever way the wind blows, works hard the whole time, and never goes anywhere. A leader who knows his purpose uses the same wind to get somewhere, even when it is blowing in his face.
What is the connection between purpose and hope?
Purpose creates hope, and hope becomes vision. The danger is hoping for something outside your control, which is what Admiral Stockdale described about the prisoners who did not survive Hanoi. Hope works when you can adjust and build the next plan after the first one does not arrive.