It is fall in Hanover, New Hampshire, and on this campus of red brick and white trim, steeples and New England church bells, the leaves are beginning to turn. The air is brisk, sometimes rainy, sometimes blue. I’m back on the campus of Dartmouth College to teach Leading with Purpose (a brief introduction to what we cover in Paths to Purpose and pulled in part from The Grit Factor) at the Tuck School’s Leadership and Strategic Impact program after attending our 20th business school reunion. I teach on Wednesday, and so I’m attending the earlier sessions of the program this week: Paul Argenti’s presentations on strategic communications, Shane Meeker’s (Shane is at P&G) presentation on Storytelling; today is Ron Adler’s consideration of Ecosystem Strategy, and Syd Finklestein’s strategy and leadership and Pino Audio’s leadership styles (affiliate links to their books).
In the first two days, what we’ve considered:
A leader is responsible for all aspects of his or her business. In order to be effective, communication is critical. Doing your work ahead of time to plan and develop effective communication — whether you’re running a business a nonprofit or a family— will save you time and trouble later. When you’re communicating, being thoughtful about using storytelling to deliver your message will increase your effectiveness.
Before you can do your best work, though, you have to invest in yourself as a leader.
In this week long executive education course at Tuck, each of these leaders is investing in themselves— or their companies are investing in them, recognizing the need to step away from the daily requirements to go deeper, to learn, to grow.
To be truly effective, though, Wednesday afternoon I’ll give each of these leaders the chance to back up, to build the foundation, to start with themselves— not just their knowledge base of business, but their knowledge and understanding of themselves as people and as leaders— which is knowledge that allows them to do their best work, and to help their people do their best work. It’s about taking time for wisdom, and not only knowledge.
This is critical work, and it’s work we’ve largely left out of leadership development in the past couple of decades. I’ve talked with people across industries frustrated that leadership programs, both internal to companies and external, have largely dropped this necessary internal work. Corollaries can be made in academia and other areas as well, where specific knowledge is prioritized over the understanding that comprises the humanities, broadly defined. We are poorer humans because of it. Knowledge undirected by wisdom becomes mere transaction.
In an age of endless information, we need more wisdom in our lives and in our work. Wisdom requires patient practice over time, discipline, and perspective. True wisdom is always kind (not nice— kind). Wisdom transcends the urgency of the now. It respects history and tradition, while applying modern understanding. And as Aristotle said: “knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
To lead with purpose requires wisdom.
To lead with purpose requires wisdom. Developing that wisdom isn’t a quick problem to solve on the back of a napkin, though that may be a part of your process. Nor is it a finite exercise. Finding and defining purpose is a life long pursuit.
Speaking of wisdom: one more senior participant said, in the midst of one of our discussions after an exercise I led in the Paths to Purpose introduction: “I’ve realized I’m not a pro in the ocean— I’m an ocean in a drop.” Mic drop. Should we have stopped there?
This is work we are meant to be doing, as reflected by the repeated studies over the past several years before, during and after COVID. Again and again, the results indicate a near universal yearning for purpose— and its positive impact in our lives (and by corollary, the problems with a lack of purpose: decreased longevity, decreased employee engagement, decreased performance, decreased mental health, decreased relational and physical health). Gen X struggles with understanding how to provide the purpose demanded by Gen Z.
Asking why we do what we do is an important step, and further than many have taken time to venture. But purpose is deeper than why. Purpose considers values as well as mission— and it begins with the leaders themselves.
Once a leader does the work to connect to his or her own purpose— and this requires setting aside the time and mental energy and focus to do it— that leader is ready to lead with purpose— both from the perspective of leading his or her organization, as well as leading his or her people.
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Connection to personal purpose can then be connected to organizational purpose— and both are about transcending the self, going beyond ourselves, contrary to the modern wisdom of going within ourselves. (Later in the process these two things, going inside oneself and transcending oneself, may coalesce, but that is even deeper work).
Are you ready to commit to the work that leads to wise leadership? Will you take a step in that direction?
If you give yourself the opportunity to step away for fifteen to twenty minutes a day to do this important work— we give you the tools and direction in Paths to Purpose (as well as Going for Grit!) — you will discover this connection to wisdom beginning, even appearing. You may resonate with Eric, who wrote to me after only a few days into the curriculum, saying “one week in, you have transformed me.” Perhaps you will begin to sense the shift that will reveal itself in more subtle ways, though meetings, interactions and insights.
One thing is certain: your commitment to the practice of wisdom-finding beginning with purpose discernment will guide you and deepen your access to the grit and resilience that gets you through hard times, and the connection with others that makes leadership both effective and worthwhile.
Will you commit today?
With love and to YOUR grit,
Shannon
An exercise below for paid subscribers, and a final note for everyone: quality check your purpose by ensuring it meets the criteria “First do no harm.” If your purpose is driven by NEGATIVE energy as opposed to POSITIVE energy, it will neither be as effective as you hope, and it may even be damaging to you and to others. Driven by POSITIVE energy, your impact can make the world a better place.
Here is some work to get you started— an exercise I call “down and up” (for paid subscribers only):