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Priceless Perspectives #45: Purpose — The Reason Behind the Work

Writer: Scott Doggett
Scott Doggett
3 hours ago
10 min read

Leadership growth isn’t one-size-fits-all. Some leaders learn through practical workplace insight. Others through story. Some through Scripture. Others through the executive lens. That’s why each weekly theme is explored through four different perspectives… so you can grow in the way that reaches your heart, your mind, and your leadership practice.


This Week’s Theme: Purpose in Leadership


Purpose is more than a mission statement, job title, or distant dream. It is a clear understanding of why the work matters, whom it serves, and what difference it is meant to make. Purpose gives ordinary tasks meaning, helps leaders make difficult choices, and reminds people that their contribution belongs to something larger than themselves.


To explore this week’s theme, choose the lens that connects with you most or experience all four for a full, 360-degree perspective:


◆ Adventures of Noah Hart: What Was Worth Carrying

◆ The Shepherd’s Voice: A Great Work Worth Continuing

◆ The Boardroom Brief: Purpose Must Become a Decision System


Leadership Lens

◆ Leadership Lens


Why Purpose Gives Leadership Direction


Purpose answers a question every leader and team eventually asks:

Why does this work matter?

Without a meaningful answer, work can become a collection of deadlines, meetings, targets, and tasks. Purpose connects those activities to the people they serve and the difference they are intended to make.


Purpose Connects the Task to the Person


People rarely find lasting motivation in completing tasks merely because they appear on a list. They are more likely to care when they understand what the task makes possible for someone else. A report can help a leader make a better decision. A carefully prepared room can help someone feel welcomed. A corrected process can protect a customer. A difficult conversation can help a colleague grow. Purpose helps people see beyond what they are doing to why it matters.

Purpose transforms a task when people can see the person standing on the other side of it.

Purpose Clarifies What Matters Most


Leaders constantly face competing priorities, limited resources, and more good ideas than they can pursue. Purpose becomes a filter. It helps leaders determine what deserves attention, what should wait, and what no longer belongs. The question is not simply, “Can we do this?” but “Does this move us closer to the difference we exist to make?”

A good opportunity can still become a distraction when it pulls people away from their central purpose.

Purpose Sustains Effort Without Glorifying Exhaustion


Purpose can help people persevere through difficulty because they understand what their effort makes possible. But meaningful work does not make people immune to fatigue, disappointment, or burnout. Leaders should never use purpose to pressure people into endless sacrifice. Purpose provides meaning and direction; wise leadership must still provide boundaries, resources, support, and rest.

A worthy destination does not excuse harming people along the journey.

Practicing Purpose This Week


This week, consider:

  • Asking who benefits from the work currently receiving your attention

  • Connecting one routine task to the difference it makes for others

  • Removing one activity that no longer serves the central purpose

  • Helping a team member see why their contribution matters

  • Examining whether urgency has pulled your decisions away from your purpose


The Leadership Ripple


When leaders consistently connect decisions and tasks to a meaningful purpose, people can better understand how their work contributes. Priorities become clearer, tradeoffs become more thoughtful, and effort becomes connected to impact rather than activity alone.

Purpose does not merely give people something to do. It gives them a reason to care.


Adventures of Noah Hart

◆ Adventures of Noah Hart


What Was Worth Carrying


Golden fields stretched across Kansas as Noah Hart and Luman approached a warehouse surrounded by vans, luggage, and stacks of supply boxes.


Inside, volunteers were preparing for an international service trip. At the center of the activity stood a man checking lists and encouraging the team.


“Are you joining us?” he asked.


Smiling boy with blue backpack greets an older man holding a clipboard in a sunny warehouse, with a glowing cartoon firefly nearby.

“I’m Noah.” Noah replied as the firefly glowed. “I'm traveling across the country learning about leadership.”


“Then you arrived during an important lesson,” the man said. “I’m Jim. I spent many years serving as a pastor. These days, I help volunteers serve alongside communities around the world.”


Jim explained that the team was leaving the next morning to work with local partners in Guatemala. Together, they would help complete a clean-water system serving families and a nearby school.


A volunteer named Barkley hurried toward him holding a clipboard.


“We have a problem,” Barkley said. “The airline changed the aircraft. Our cargo allowance is three hundred pounds lighter.”


The room grew quiet.


Nearly every box contained something useful: tools, replacement parts, educational materials, team shirts, decorations, gifts, and camera equipment for documenting the trip.


“We could leave some of the heavy filter parts,” one volunteer suggested. “They may have extras there.”


“Or the repair tools,” another added. “We probably won’t need all of them.”


Jim did not answer immediately.


Instead, he asked, “Why are we going?”


“To Guatemala,” someone replied.


“That is where we are going,” Jim said. “Why are we going?”


Barkley looked toward the boxes.


“To help families have dependable clean water long after we leave.”


Jim nodded. “Then what should determine what stays and what goes?”


The volunteers began unpacking.


Smiling team in a warehouse sorts boxed gear; man holds a blue filter, boy with clipboard and a glowing firefly hover nearby.

They kept the filter components, repair tools, testing equipment, and Spanish-language instructions. They removed banners, extra shirts, decorative items, and anything that made the team more visible without making the mission more useful.


Jim opened his own suitcase and removed half his clothes.


“You don’t have to do that,” Barkley said.


“I shouldn’t ask everyone else to carry the purpose while I protect my comfort,” Jim replied.


Soon, the shipment was within the new limit.


“We spent weeks preparing some of the things we left behind,” Barkley said.


“They were good ideas,” Jim replied. “But a good idea that no longer serves the purpose can become baggage.”


Noah looked around the warehouse. “Why didn’t you simply tell everyone what to remove?”


“If I had made the decision for them, they would have learned how to repack these boxes,” Jim said. “I wanted them to learn how to use purpose to make the next decision.”


Before Noah left, Jim handed him a packet of sunflower seeds.


“Kansas’ state flower,” he explained. “The sunflower reminds us to keep turning toward the light. Purpose does the same for leaders... it keeps our attention pointed toward something larger than ourselves.”


Noah planted the seeds outside the warehouse. As he pressed the last one into the soil, a wooden sign shimmered into view:

Seed Planted (Kansas): Purpose keeps our effort focused on the people it is meant to serve.

As Noah and Luman continued across the prairie, Noah glanced back at the volunteers loading the final boxes.


“Can people do good work and still lose their purpose?” he asked.


“Easily,” Luman replied.


“How?”


“When the activity becomes more important than the people it was meant to serve.”


Noah carried the lesson forward:


Purpose is not measured by how much we carry, how busy we appear, or how impressive the journey looks.


It is revealed by whether what we carry serves the people we are traveling to meet.


Boy plants seeds in a sunflower field at sunrise beside a sign reading Seed Planted (Kansas), with a glowing firefly nearby.


The Shepherd’s Voice

◆ The Shepherd’s Voice


A Great Work Worth Continuing


Theme Verse: “I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?” — Nehemiah 6:3 (NIV)


Purpose in Scripture


Nehemiah’s purpose was larger than rebuilding a wall. Jerusalem’s broken walls represented vulnerability, shame, and a community in need of restoration. Nehemiah prayed, planned, organized people, secured resources, and remained focused despite opposition and distraction. When his enemies attempted to draw him away, he responded that he was doing a great work and could not come down. His purpose did not remove difficulty, but it helped him recognize what deserved his attention. Nehemiah reminds us that purpose becomes powerful when a God-given burden is translated into faithful, organized action.


Purpose in a Christian Workplace


Not every Christian is called to work in a church or ministry, but every Christian can approach work as an opportunity to love God and serve people. Purpose may appear through:

  • Creating a safe and dignifying workplace

  • Developing someone’s confidence and capability

  • Protecting customers through careful decisions

  • Using resources responsibly

  • Helping people see how their contribution serves others


Christian leaders should not use purpose to make every assignment sound heroic or pressure employees into unhealthy sacrifice. We honor God not only through what the organization accomplishes, but through how people are treated while accomplishing it.

Godly purpose directs both the work we pursue and the way we care for people along the journey.

A Leader’s Prayer for Purpose


Dear Lord,


Thank You for giving meaning to the work You place before me.


Help me understand whom I am called to serve and what You want my leadership to make possible. Keep me from confusing busyness with faithfulness or recognition with impact.


Give me wisdom to choose what matters most, courage to release what no longer serves the purpose, and perseverance when the work becomes difficult.


Protect me from using a worthy mission to justify unhealthy demands or careless treatment of people. May both the destination and the journey reflect Your love.


Keep my heart, decisions, and leadership turned toward You.


Amen.


One Faith-Forward Mini-Challenge


Choose one responsibility currently consuming your time and ask:

“Lord, who is this work meant to serve, and what would faithfulness look like today?”

Then take one action that reconnects the task to its purpose... clarify the priority, remove a distraction, encourage a contributor, or redirect the work toward the person it is meant to help.



The Boardroom Brief

◆ The Boardroom Brief


Purpose Must Become a Decision System


Organizational purpose has become common language in annual reports, recruiting campaigns, and executive presentations. But purpose creates value only when it influences priorities, resource allocation, incentives, and difficult tradeoffs. A purpose statement that cannot guide a decision is usually just a description.


Purpose Without Clarity Is Not Enough


Research published in Organization Science examined approximately 500,000 employee survey responses across U.S. companies. The researchers found that a strong sense of purpose alone was not associated with financial performance. However, organizations combining high purpose with clear management direction demonstrated stronger future accounting and stock-market performance. The study suggests that purpose creates organizational value when people also understand the path for acting on it.


Executives may believe the purpose is obvious because they helped write it. Employees need to understand how that purpose changes:

  • Which customers and needs receive priority

  • How resources are allocated

  • Which opportunities are pursued or declined

  • What responsible performance looks like

  • How their individual work contributes

Purpose needs translation, not repetition.

Purpose Must Reach the Daily Work


Gallup reports that only four in ten U.S. employees strongly agree that their organization’s mission or purpose makes their job feel important. Gallup estimates that increasing that proportion to eight in ten could be associated with 41% lower absenteeism, 50% fewer safety incidents, and a 33% improvement in quality. Gallup’s research reinforces that purpose becomes meaningful when employees can connect it to their own responsibilities. This connection cannot be created through a yearly town hall alone. Managers must regularly help employees understand who benefits from their work, how quality affects that person, and why a particular priority matters.


Purpose Becomes Credible Through Tradeoffs


In 2014, CVS stopped selling tobacco products at its pharmacies because leaders concluded that those sales conflicted with the company’s health-focused purpose. The decision meant walking away from approximately $2 billion in annual revenue. CVS also introduced smoking-cessation support and repositioned itself as CVS Health. The company’s announcement demonstrated what purpose looks like when it becomes a strategic filter rather than a marketing message.


Not every purpose-driven decision requires sacrificing billions of dollars. But every credible purpose eventually requires leaders to decline something attractive, convenient, or profitable because it does not belong.


The Boardroom Questions


Boards and executive teams should ask:

  • Which recent decision was materially shaped by our purpose?

  • Can employees explain who benefits from their work and why it matters?

  • Where do our incentives conflict with the purpose we communicate?

  • What attractive opportunity should we decline because it would pull us off course?


Bottom Line


Purpose is not an inspirational accessory to strategy. It is a decision system that connects work to human impact, clarifies priorities, and guides tradeoffs. Boards and executives make purpose credible by translating it into resource decisions, operating expectations, leadership behavior, and the courage to release good ideas that no longer serve the organization’s reason for being.




Join the Movement That Leads with Purpose


Purpose helps leaders look beyond activity to impact. It reminds us whom the work is meant to serve, helps us choose what matters most, and gives people a meaningful reason to care about their contribution.


If this issue encouraged you, consider sharing it with a leader, mentor, teacher, or friend who helped you discover greater meaning in your work. And if you want to build a culture where people understand how their contributions serve something larger than themselves, we would love to walk alongside you.


Learn more at: nationalald.com


Start a conversation: Book a 30-minute exploration call



Because when leaders keep purpose at the center of their decisions, something powerful happens…

People see why their work matters, understand how their contribution serves others, and gain the clarity to focus on what matters most.

And always remember… people are priceless!

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