In the previous article, we explored what purposeful organisational leadership means and why it matters. In this post, we focus on how leaders can intentionally develop purposeful organisational leadership, turning purpose from a statement into a lived reality across the organisation.
Start with Leadership Commitment
“I hold the view that leaders are better able to contribute to the flourishing of life if their actions are guided by a deeper sense of purpose” (De Silva, 2024, p.6). Therefore, purposeful organisational leadership needs to begin at the top. Senior leaders must embrace the organisation’s purpose as a guiding principle for decisions and behaviours. This commitment is not symbolic; it requires courage to prioritise purpose even when short-term pressures tempt compromise.
Make the Organisational Purpose Your Guiding Light
The starting point for developing purposeful organisational leadership is a clear purpose statement. This is not a marketing slogan; it is the organisation’s reason for being and its unique contribution to the flourishing of life. From this foundation, leaders can craft a mission statement that defines how the purpose will be delivered and set Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs) to drive long-term success.
Continue reading “Developing Purposeful Organisational Leadership (Purposeful Leadership – Part 10)”
I have learnt that we keep discovering our higher purpose as we live life once we discover the notion of purpose and is conscious of its existence. This had got me in to the habit of reflecting, reviewing, refreshing and re-writing my purpose every month.
Let me use the words of the ‘Cookie Thief’ poem by Valerie Cox, I recite at trainings and the ‘ladder of inference’ developed by Coghlan & Brannick (2014, p.31) to attempt to figure out why we have misunderstandings. I will interrupt the poem and use the seven steps of the ‘ladder of inference’ model during the interludes in this attempt.
Have you ever thought about how you know what you know? When this question was first asked from me, the answers that came to my mind was; from books, from parents, from teachers, from the learned. But when confronted with the next question, so do you believe that all that you know was true, I felt yes, it must be true, if not these will not be thought to me by those who I respect as learned, honest and well-meaning. But when I thought deeper, I felt that what is true to them, does not have to be true to me, because they come from different backgrounds, eras, conditions, cultures, religion, and would be driven by different purposes etc. Therefore for us to claim that we know what we know requires a kind of self-validation. John Heron provides a theoretical framework that helps make sense of the way we know. He names it extended epistemology, which has four interwoven ways of knowing (Heron 1992, 1999): 
We are one of seven billion people in this world and each one of us sees the world from our own paradigm. This short blog post will examine the dangers of getting imprisoned in a paradigm and the benefits of becoming a prism as prisons are restricting and prisms are reflecting.
We may have heard this word tons of times from our childhood. You are wrong! That’s the wrong answer! You have wronged me! that’s the wrong way to do it! I have many times wondered about the meaning of this word. What impact does this word have on our lives? What impact does this word have on our relationships?
