Leadership

How Leaders Increase Their Team’s Sense of Purpose

We have come a long way in the world of business. Unlike in the past, when it was more about getting the job done, we are now focused on how we get it done. Paying attention to how has led to better working environments and more meaningful work for people.

The benefits of giving individuals meaningful work has been clearly documented. The research shows us that those who complete work that they believe is meaningful are more likely to see increases in their performance. Also, they are more engaged at work and are therefore more likely to stay at the company for longer.

If you have ever had the chance to work on anything that has significant meaning to you, you would have found this to be true. Carrying out work that is meaningful to us gives us energy unmatched by tasks that carry less meaning.

We love to say phrases like:

“We need to complete purpose-driven work.”

“We need to ensure we are giving meaningful work to individuals.”

However, we often say these things without truly understanding their definition. Meaningful work is:

“Work that is experienced as particularly significant and holding positive meaning for an individual.”

Within this definition, we see two things of which one is out of a leader’s control. Arguably, you could say that both are outside of the leader’s control. The significance of a particular role or activity can be controlled to some extent by the leader.

Ensuring that activities and roles are formed in a way that helps each individual feel significant is essential. However, the significance of the work given is often determined by things outside of the leader’s control. Such as an individual’s experience, the work needed to be done and higher-level organisational goals.

One thing that is certainly out of the control of the leader is ensuring that the work has a positive meaning for the individual. Unfortunately, positive meaning is how the person perceives their work and what they are doing.

Even if leaders could control both of these, it would be hard to balance the two. Highly significant work could mean:

• Solving a big problem
• Closing a skill gap
• Feeding essential parts of your activity into another activity

A lot of what it means to be highly significant is also interpreted differently by individuals. Also, positive meaning for an individual is dependent on many factors too. There is a huge number of positive things we could be doing in the world, but not all of them bring about a feeling of positive meaning to our lives.

As we go through life, we tend to place more significance on one of these two than the other. A young individual may be more concerned with completing significant work as they are right at the start of their career and are ambitious. However, someone coming to the end of their career may be inclined to place more value on doing work that provides them with a positive meaning.

The ideal is a job or activity that encompasses both of these. A job role that allows for highly significant work that is meaningful to the individual is a match made in heaven. Fortunately, it is not impossible to find, and many do find it.

Nevertheless, we still have many people at work stuck doing jobs that are not meaningful to them at all. As a result, leaders must ensure their teams feel a sense of purpose and meaning or risk losing them.

Here are three ways leaders can increase a sense of purpose for those under their leadership.

1. See Meaningful Work as a Transfer

Throughout most of our lives, we are taught that our purpose/meaning is found within ourselves. We are told by most individuals that we are left to decide our purpose, job and what we want to do in our lives.

Although there is some truth to it, how we go about perceiving what is meaningful is often derived from others. When we see how others act towards an object, place or person, we tend to base our value systems on that. And what others place value in often gives us a good idea of how valuable something is.

It is up to us as individuals to interpret the things people place value in. If we do not do that, we end up following the herd blindly. By ensuring that we reflect and think about what others place value in, we can build our own value systems.

In fact, it is essential that leaders do this regularly as leaders are often placed with the task to form a vision. It is through that vision leaders can influence their teams, but they can also demotivate them. By taking time to understand what is truly meaningful, leaders can form visions that are contagious.

In order for us to feel a sense of meaning in the work that we are doing, a transfer between the work giver and the worker must occur. The world transfers its values to us, and we are left to decide what we think of it. Leaders transfer work to their team, and they are left to decide if it is meaningful or not.

Although there are a few things in this world that have intrinsic value, much of the work we do is a means to an end. Therefore, meaningful work is less about the activity and more about how it was transferred to the individual.

Seeing meaning and purpose in this way allows leaders to focus on how they present activities to their team. How we communicate the work that needs to be done to deliver the vision in mind is essential.

We may not be able to tailor an activity to what the individual intrinsically finds meaningful. However, we can communicate these activities in a way that highlights their importance to the team and the company.

2. Paying Attention to Your Working Relationships

Seeing meaningful work as a transfer rather than a set of activities, it should be no surprise that our relationships are vital. For the most part, relationships are also a means of transfer. We have friendships and romantic partners to transfer things like Love, happiness and pleasure.

Research has shown that over the long run, our ability to be influenced by our leader’s purpose increases. And this makes sense as our bond becomes stronger with our leaders the longer we spend with them.

With this in mind, leaders should try to balance the time spent focused on activities. Instead, leaders should think about how they can build a stronger connection between their team members and their vision to ensure it can be transferred.

The work you give to your team is ofcourse one way of doing this. However, ensuring your team understand your vision and believes in it is another way to do it. And you can only do this by communicating it well and highlighting the positive impact your vision is having on the company.

Remember to reinforce your relationship by letting your team members know how much they mean to your overall vision and how the work they are doing is pivotal. That way, you show them that the work is significant and meaningful to you.

3. Investing in Visionary Leadership

Finally, at the core of the transfer of meaning to your team is the vision. The goal is to share your vision across your team, not keep it. In doing so, you increase the chances of your team making it a vision of their own.

Leaders should take time to develop their visionary traits to build visions that are meaningful and strong. It is essential that visions go deep and have many layers to them.

A lot of the time, leaders have a vision that is a solution to a problem that they want to solve. These are unengaging as they tend to create leaders that have a “my way or the high way” attitude.

Visions are an ideal you wish to see in your organisation, team or individual life. Visions should not propose a solution but instead should provide a means through which inspiration and innovation can come about.

By investing in your vision and building visionary leadership traits, you will draw your team members closer to you. In doing so, they are more likely to adopt a value system that is similar to yours and find their work meaningful.

Conclusion

To make our teams feel a sense of meaning and purpose in their work, we must transfer that to them. When we see purpose this way, we put our team member’s feelings of positive meaning in our hands.

How we communicate our vision, work, and the value of our team will increase the positive meaning many look for at work. So, ensure your vision is deep and the bond you have with your team is strong. In doing so, you can transfer meaning in an exciting and revitalising way.

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References:

Kipfelsberger, P., Raes, A., Herhausen, D., Kark, R. and Bruch, H. (2022). START WITH WHY: THE TRANSFER OF WORK MEANINGFULNESS FROM LEADERS TO FOLLOWERS AND THE ROLE OF DYADIC TENURE. Journal of Organizational Behavior. doi:10.1002/job.2649.

Van Wingerden, J. and Van der Stoep, J. (2018). The motivational potential of meaningful work: Relationships with strengths use, work engagement, and performance. PLOS ONE, 13(6), p.e0197599. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0197599.

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