Addressing purpose at work is key to achieving excellence, not just success. It is not only about gaining recognition for hard work. It is about being happy, creative, and finding meaning in what we do. Ultimately, purpose at work matters because we deserve a fulfilling life.
What Is Purpose at Work?
What is purpose? Dictionaries offer generic definitions to help us understand. Semantically, a purpose is the intention, determination, or reason behind an action.
What does purpose at work mean for an organization? Here, we refer to what gives it meaning—its reason for being. At a corporate level, we can use a definition from a recent HBR article based on feedback from thousands of employees: “Purpose is the shared sense of meaning and impact experienced by employees.”
Do you see anything tangible in this definition? No economic indicator directly measures the power of living and working with a clear purpose.
Yet, when we understand the link between the two, everything changes. We realize that financial goals do not conflict with purpose; instead, purpose drives them. This realization allows people and companies to embrace the emerging paradigm of the Purpose economy.
What Are the Benefits of Working with Purpose?
With this new perspective, the divide between the technical and the human disappears. The separation between doing and being no longer belongs in forward-thinking organizations.
Furthermore, because purpose comes from within, the individual receives the primary benefit of purpose at work. Working and living with purpose allows us to look inward. It helps us renew ourselves by overcoming the limits, blocks, and attitudes that hinder our talent growth.
Knowing and accepting ourselves through our values helps us build meaningful connections. It allows us to live and work in a space where purpose shines, connecting our personal goals to the corporate purpose.
What about financial benefits? According to HBR, 9 out of 10 employees would take a pay cut for more meaningful work. This shows we can measure the financial impact of purpose. Multiple economic indicators confirm that creating meaning at work is no longer optional. It is vital for business sustainability and employee well-being.
What Factors Are Strengthened When People Work with Purpose?
- Working with purpose prepares us to learn courageously by asking deep questions that awaken our inner strength. On this path to maturity, we learn to leave behind emotional baggage and mental traps. These traps, despite seeming intelligent, often drag us down with biases and limitations.
- On this upward path, we understand our surroundings and learn to be inclusive.
- When we stop trying to force ourselves to change—or swap “bad” thoughts for “good” ones—we learn the value of true self-recognition. We can then extend this recognition to others.
- On this journey, we learn to accept and trust in life. This is the belief that, whatever happens externally, we have the resources and skills to move forward. Antonovsky defined this as the Sense of Coherence in his Salutogénesis theory.
Can a Company Renew Itself Through Purpose at Work and Grow Profitability?
Absolutely, YES. However, you must create the right conditions. Reinvestment or renewal requires vision and determination from the CEO and leadership team. It also requires understanding where the organization currently stands. Where do we come from? In the traditional business model of the past century, we were taught that shareholder value gave meaning and sustainability to a company.
This value was, and still is, measured by financial metrics evaluated on a 12-month basis. Under these conditions, companies often operate out of fear that investors will move their funds elsewhere.
Fear leads to control and more hard work. It forces companies to compete, stand out, seek recognition, outsell everyone, and fight over top-performing talent.
We have made progress by focusing on stakeholder value, including employees. Yet, many professionals in these environments are not happy. They cannot develop the most genuinely human of all intelligences—the only one that can connect them to the corporate purpose.
To harness the power of purpose at work, we cannot just define it and post it on a website. Working with purpose must feel authentic to have a real economic and human impact. It only feels authentic when it comes from within, expressing our spiritual intelligence. Spiritual intelligence allows us to be creative, identify values, live them, and inspire trust.
This intelligence must be trained. The link between purpose and profitability only exists if senior management successfully shares the meaning behind the purpose statement across the organization, with a strong focus on managers. Once trained, it becomes the key leadership competency in the purpose economy.
What Formula to Apply and Where to Start Renewal Through Purpose?
“A person striving to find meaning in their life and work is not neurotic; they are deeply human.”
V. Frankl – Founder of logotherapy and author of “Man’s Search for Meaning”
As a female executive and business and marketing specialist, may I share one more insight? Here is what I have learned from my experiences in business and cultural change:
- Pay attention to yourself: find moments to pause and align your inner self first, then look at your organization.
- Care for and support each individual. Ensure they understand, live, and value the corporate purpose. To guide you on this path, we created the LifeCourse Journey model and method. It can help accelerate change for both you and your employees.
Then, you can focus on marketing. You won’t have to worry if your brands are recognized as purpose-driven brands. You will know they are. By putting first things first, leaders can make a real difference. They must open up, show determination, stay flexible, and ask themselves key questions:
Are we creating an environment that allows us to become more human and authentic? Can our managers and employees develop this dimension of their intelligence? What barriers do we face? Am I being a barrier myself?.
