There is so much written about businesses having a higher organisational purpose and the people in that organisation all being aligned to that purpose.  It could be argued that this is an idealised concept and that the main purpose of a business is to produce profit. However, research consistently reveals that businesses with a higher organisational purpose have the greatest chance of long term sustainable success.  Research also shows that people with a purpose that feel part of a community are the happiest.  Because of this, exploring the concept of business and personal purpose seems to be very worthwhile.

All business are set up by people so personal purpose seems the logical place to start.

Many of us don’t know exactly what our purpose is but we know how we feel working within a business and how we feel working with our managers and leaders. Often, when we feel unhappy at work it is because something feels uncomfortable or unaligned. Somebody may have said or done something to upset us or behaved in a way that does not support our own individual values. Sometimes we feel uncomfortable because a business has acted in a way that we are not happy to be part of.  Thinking about times this has happened to us can give us some big clues about our values and purpose.

Many of us don’t understand how our job roles fulfil our purpose. It may be that we think of our work as a way to pay the bills and not a way to help us achieve our purpose in life.  We think of work and our personal lives as two separate things.  It’s hardly surprising because few of us have really verbalised what our purpose is.  We don’t think about why we are doing what we are doing.

Leaders and managers have a pivotal role in raising awareness of purpose by communicating why they do their work and how it contributes to the organisational purpose.  Communicating purpose will inspire others to think about their own purpose, the greater good of the business and how their role contributes to it.  It promotes feelings of happiness and community at work. Ultimately, it reflects in achieving business goals and the overall success of the business.

If you would like to know more about discovering your purpose can have a significant effect on business results why not come along to Becoming a Brilliant Boss where we will be discussing this and other concepts in leadership.  We’d love to see you there.

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