The vital role of leadership commitment and shared intent
Sponsorship of the purpose process by the leadership of an organisation is vital to its success. If this wasn’t considered in the initial development of purpose it is necessary to build this going forward.
How might you go about this?
- Creating the space for debate and challenge so that each member of the leadership team can openly share their views and ensuring differences are brought into the room is critical. This is needed to enable a team to come to a shared belief about what being purpose-led really means and what it implies for the future of the business, as well as a shared aspiration to become purpose-led and what it means in practice.
- HR, Responsible Business, Communications and other corporate functions are critical in supporting the organisation, but integrating purpose into the day-to-day running of the business has to be led by the CEO, the executive committee and the business/service/sector/regional leaders and supported by all the organisation.
- It is also critical that this process of creating a shared intent and commitment happens at Board level. The Board become over time the collective trustees of the purpose, and it should anchor board decisions and become a key reference point in major decisions, including ExCo succession to ensure management stays true to the purpose.
Exercise:
Consider to what extent amongst the leadership team there is:
- a shared understanding about what being purpose-led means?
- a belief that being purpose-led will create a better business?
- a shared understanding about the implications of how you collectively run a purpose-led business?
If there is a persistent lack of commitment or creeping doubt or cynicism about purpose, then we recommend reconvening the leadership team to surface and explore tensions and conflict. Don’t ignore it!
See example leadership workshop in the resources section.
Or refer to Inspiration and Shared Understanding sections of this Knowledgebase for additional content and resources.
In conjunction with reconvening the leadership team, it is helpful to proactively seek out diverse insights and perspectives from a broad selection of sources both within the organisation and stakeholder groups.
Of course, in reality, no matter how progressed companies are on their purpose journey (or those that have been purpose-led from the outset) it is hard to confidently answer yes to all the above questions. Throughout a company’s journey to become purpose-led we encourage leaders to frequently reflect on these questions and to hold ongoing, widespread conversations about what matters; continually surface and explore the meaning, intention, ambiguity and conflict that may exist about what it means to be purpose-led. When new senior colleagues join, who were not part of discussions creating a shared understanding, it is very important not only that people are hired for their purpose alignment but also that sufficient time is taken to have the necessary dialogue to ensure that shared understanding is also shared with and by them.
Another minor but important point is that confusion can result from inconsistent use of language in particular about the meaning and difference between ‘purpose-led, ‘responsible’ and ‘sustainable’ business, in addition to ESG. It helps if there is consistent use and agreed meaning attached to these terms within the company. For more on this see: The relationship between purpose, CSR, sustainability and ESG