3 Daily Leadership Actions That Keep Purpose Alive During Uncertainty

In the face of economic, trade, and geo-political uncertainties, there’s an understandable drive to pull back and narrow our focus on initiatives and goals linked to protecting and preserving an organization’s viability and resilience. Indeed, reports from KPMG, McKinsey, and other industry reports reveal how many companies are either scaling back or narrowing the focus of their innovation pipeline.

However, it’s equally important during these periods of uncertainty that leaders make a greater effort to remind and reinforce the connection between employee contributions and the purpose of the organization.

Specifically, that you bridge the gap that uncertainty creates between your team’s daily efforts and the organization’s overarching vision.

Why purpose matters more in uncertain times

Studies have shown that when employees understand how their contributions serve to advance the organization’s purpose, they feel a greater sense of meaning in their work. This sense of meaning makes it easier to transform routine tasks into purpose-driven actions, and taps into their internal motivations to contribute their discretionary efforts.

In fact, research into purpose-driven companies found they had 40% higher levels of employee retention, 30% higher levels of innovation, and tended to be first or second in their market segment.

Under the best conditions, these are desired outcomes, but in periods of uncertainty, they can become game-changers for where your organization will be compared to your competitors when conditions for growth are more apparent.

And there’s another important point to understand about leading with purpose – you shouldn’t wait for critical team junctures or an all-hands meeting to communicate and reinforce your collective why.

Rather, this should be something you communicate and exemplify in your daily interactions and actions with your employees.

Three daily ways leaders can reinforce purpose

So here are three daily actions you can take to lead with purpose effectively:

1. Use storytelling to create purpose moments

As part of your weekly team meetings, create “purpose moments” where you highlight how an employee or the team’s contributions that week helped create meaningful impact for your customers or stakeholders. It doesn’t have to be something significant, merely an accomplishment made that week that creates momentum towards your shared purpose.

2. Recognize impact immediately

Don’t wait for a formal meeting to recognize an employee whose efforts are helping to fuel your organization’s purpose. Point out the difference your employee made. This will not only help them understand what efforts matter most, but it will also help them feel a greater sense of meaning in what they do.

3. Keep connecting day-to-day work to the bigger why

During uncertain times, it’s hard to get a clear picture beyond a few months or even weeks. For your employees, that lack of clarity is even worse as they don’t operate from a higher vantage point as you do. So make sure you keep connecting the dots between what your employees are doing and the why that’s the driving force behind your collective efforts.

Purpose-driven leadership builds engagement and resilience

Remember, what makes purpose-driven organizations successful is not that they make grand proclamations about why they do what they do. Instead, it’s due to the efforts of their leaders to ensure their employees understand the significance of their contributions, thereby unlocking a greater level of engagement and commitment from those they lead.

Something every leader is capable of achieving no matter the level of uncertainty that clouds their path to success.