Aligning Purposes

Dear Managers and Leaders!

The other day, I participated in a webinar about personal leadership given by David Bernard-Stevens (another member of the Leaders’ Cafe Foundation). One of the central messages of the webinar was that at the core of personal leadership lies your dream or purpose. You cannot lead your life, lead yourself, without first having a vision of where you want to go. To truly feel alive and important to this world, you need to find your purpose and direct your actions and energy towards it. According to David, without alignment between your life and the purpose found within yourself, you will never feel satisfied with your accomplishments.

After the webinar, I started to think about David’s purpose-life alignment message in relation to team leadership. It soon became clear to me that if misalignment between life and inner purpose brings frustration, then misalignment between team’s purpose and team member’s purpose must also brings problems. If purposes are not aligned, then the team will drive its members in a direction that will take them away from their dreams, from their purpose. The team will ask its members to spend time and energy away from their purpose which will inevitably lead to frustration and lower performance levels.

To achieve maximum team performance, team members’ purposes must somehow align with the team’s purpose. Purposes will differ slightly between team members and these differences should direct the distribution of roles within the team. It is the team leader’s role to discover team members’ purpose and align roles with purposes. The team leader also needs to align everyone’s purpose to the purpose of the team. Only then can he achieve great team performance! The best team leaders will always find a way to get to this alignment between team’s purpose and team members’ purposes. It is vital to team performance.

As a team leader, make sure that you hire people who have purposes aligned to your team’s purpose. If you don’t pay attention to this criterion as you hire people, then you will constantly have to fight an uphill battle. The “misaligned” employees will never feel motivated to work, will hardly endure setbacks, and will rarely come up with innovative ideas. The performance of the team will suffer greatly.

On the other end, if all your employees are well aligned with the team’s purpose, you will find them highly motivated, resilient, and innovative. They will help you lead the team in collaboration. You will feel comfortable delegating important tasks to your team members because you know they also have an interest in succeeding.

I believe that defining the purpose of a team and ensuring that everyone on the team aligns with that purpose is one of the most crucial tasks of every team leader. It is a fantastic motivator and insurance to success!

Until next time,

Remi Cote

PS: If you find these postings interesting and would like to learn more about what I can do for you and your team, then please visit www.innovachron.com or contact me directly at remi@innovachron.com.

Finding Your Purpose

Dear Managers and Leaders!

I’m back from vacation today. It was good to be out for more than a week, but I’m now really happy to be back to the grind! I’m rested and full of ideas and energy for the year to come! It is great to be with you again!

I think the way you feel when coming back from vacation tells a lot about how you feel about your job. This year feels so great in comparison to the past couple of years. Back then, coming back from vacation was less than exciting for me! All the energy gained back during vacation was gone the minute I entered the office. All the positive thoughts and good intentions I had about work while on vacation suddenly vanished when faced with the barrage of emails and the meetings I faced the first morning. I think this attitude clearly shows the number one problem I had back then: lack of purpose.

When working is “just a job”, when you do not feel energized to go to work in the morning, you should question your purpose. Do you know WHY you do all that work? Are you able to link your actions to some higher level mission or intention? What are you trying to achieve? If you cannot answer these simple (actually tough) questions, you will likely not be really motivated by your work. If, on top of that, you work really hard and are under a lot of stress, then you will face burn out soon.

As a leader, I think it is your own responsibility to find your purpose and then communicate it to your followers. Without purpose, you will not be able to create a vision for yourself and for your group. Without that clear vision, it will be very difficult to motivate yourself and your followers, and drive you all in a good direction. It is essential to have a strong purpose and clear vision to be able to prioritize your tasks and be able to say no in a positive way. Your purpose should always drive your actions. Without purpose, people will drive your agenda and you will lose ownership of your life.

So, how do you find your own purpose? I am reading a book called “In Extremis Leadership” written by T.A. Kolditz and I find one of his ideas really interesting. He says that to find purpose in what you do, think about how your business impacts people’s lives, how you change the life of others by your actions, by the work you do. So, when asking yourself why you are doing the job you do, look for answers in the way your job or you impact the lives of others. You will likely find a powerful purpose and regain motivation. This purpose is what will fuel your energy and secure your focus in tough times.

What about you dear leader, do you feel energized when coming into work in the morning? Do you have a strong sense of purpose for the work you and your team are doing? Do you know how your work impacts other people’s lives? Please share your thoughts with the other readers by adding a comment below.

Until next time,

Remi Cote

PS: If you find these postings interesting and would like to learn more about what I can do for you and your team, please visit www.innovachron.com or contact me directly at remi@innovachron.com.