Edited by: Scott N. Taylor, Babson College, USA
Reviewed by: Babis Mainemelis, ALBA Graduate Business School at the American College of Greece, Greece; Edward H. Powley, Naval Postgraduate School, USA
*Correspondence: Jodi L. Berg, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Avenue, Peter B. Lewis Building #340, Cleveland, OH, 44106-7235, USA
This article was submitted to Personality and Social Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
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It is believed that symbiotic visions can drive employees and organizations toward a common objective based on the premise that people have a high level of self-motivation and engagement when they are working toward something very personal. The field of organizational development has been aspiring to help organizations and people align their visions for decades without much, if any, empirical support for the role of personal purpose and goals in the symbiotic relationship with a company vision. This qualitative study examines the role personal purpose and goals play in how high performing leaders align to their company's vision. Whether and how senior managers articulate this alignment, and its correlation to their motivation and engagement, was examined. An observation was that most senior managers within organizations with a well-developed and widely known higher purpose vision are driven by something personal, identified as either personal goals or a personal purpose. One of the key findings is that personal purpose and goals, when aligned to a company vision, appear to impact motivation and engagement in different ways. When alignment is felt through the sense of the greater purpose, there is a deep, almost spiritual, commitment to making the world a better place and helping the organization contribute to that. This seems to motivate them to guide the organization toward its higher purpose vision. When alignment is felt through the organization's alignment to one's personal goals, there is a great sense of commitment to completing the steps or tasks necessary to move toward the vision, yet a clear delineation between work and life ambitions.
Certain people appear to be motivated and engaged in achieving an aspirational purpose or personal goal such that it aligns their efforts, their thinking, and their decision making. The contemporary research on the topics of purpose, company vision, motivation and engagement is prolific. Duffy and Dik (
Yet, even if individuals are externally motivated by a company's vision and are working in a stimulating environment, they are still unlikely to experience the intrinsic motivation, engagement, and fulfillment that comes from working toward the accomplishment of one's own personal ambition (Boyatzis and Akrivou,
This study is timely for businesses because employee commitment to the organization, connection to its purpose and engagement at work are all cited as major motivators of people staying in a company (Ashforth and Mael,
This research is about understanding the roles personal purpose and goals play in the symbiotic relationship with their company's vision. To be able to understand personal purpose and goals it was important to minimize the other variables. Because it would be expected that high performers are already motivated and engaged, interviewing high performers allowed me to focus on the nature of personal purpose and goals without the added complexity of whether motivation and engagement exist. The research question for this study is: What are the roles of the personal purpose and goals of high performing leaders in symbiotic relationships with their company's higher purpose vision?
The understanding of purpose has evolved quite significantly over the past 60 years. Prior to the 1959 publication of Frankl's book
Personal purpose, meaning and calling are often interrelated (Elangovan et al.,
Recent research has made some progress deconstructing and discerning meaning and purpose. Rainey cited much of the research already referenced as well as work by Heintzelman and King (2014), Hicks, Cicero, Trent, Curton, and King (2010), and Rockind (2011) to conclude that the “two are distinct phenomena that differ in their orientation toward cognition or action and in their temporal framing. Meaning and purpose are separate, albeit highly related, constructs that build off of one another so as to contribute to the broader concept of the ‘good,’ or meaningful life” (Rainey,
In addition to being future directed, the construct of purpose is becoming more understood to include doing something that a person feels driven to do in which the benefactor or benefactors are not themselves (Duffy and Sedlacek,
In this study, I sought to explore the impact of purpose, separate from both a calling from a higher source and making meaning through an integration of past experiences, while still holding to the elements of purpose that appear to have consistently emerged in psychological literature. For this study, I defined personal purpose as:
Engagement and motivation often go hand in hand (Kapoor and Meachem,
Motivation has been associated with harnessing personal drive in several theories developed over time. Maslow's need for self-actualization created a foundation for personal motivation with his statement that, “What a man can be, he must be” (Maslow,
It appears that the more personal the accomplishment, or intrinsic the center of causality, the higher the motivation to excel. Mallett and Hanrahan applied the social-cognitive theory of motivation in the context of elite athletes. In their study, they concluded that elite athletes “were highly driven by multiple personal goals and, in particular, self-determined motivation” (Mallett and Hanrahan,
The understanding of engagement has evolved over time as well. In developing his construct of personal engagement and disengagement, Khan built upon existing literature on “person to role” relationships done by Lawler and Hall 1970, Lodahl and Kejner, 1965, Mowday et al., 1982, Porters et al., 1974, Blauner, 1964, and Seeman 1972 (Kahn,
This is relevant because it exposes a gap in potential engagement and motivation when the vision or purpose individuals are striving to achieve belong to someone else (e.g., another person or an employer). This is relevant because it illustrates there may be a difference between the individual who is striving to achieve a company vision that is not their own, and the individual who is striving to achieve their personal purpose through the work they do for an organization.
There is a strong desire to embrace purpose as illustrated by the popularity of Rick Warren's book
The definitions of company vision vary but they all contain elements of an ideal future state. Vision is a desired state of products, services and an organization that a leader wants to realize (Bennis and Nanus,
Empirical evidence about the connection between vision and performance is mounting. CEOs with a vision significantly outperformed CEOs that were not leading their organization with a vision (Baum et al.,
Vision drives motivation (Mirvis et al.,
Even more effective is a shared vision which allows for the incorporation of different perspectives within the organization, creating buy-in and support (Kapoor and Meachem,
The concept of a personal higher purpose, introduced by Duffy and Sedlacek (
Relationships are very relevant to this study on the personal, social, and organizational level. According to Van Oosten (
Social identity and its correlation to relationships appear to be important in the work environment. Social identity is defined by Ashforth and Mael (
The intentional change theory establishes that positive, energizing relationships are not only critical in supporting change but a sense of group identity is an important element in the construct of shared vision (Boyatzis and Akrivou,
The literature illustrates that the constructs of personal purpose, company vision, motivation, engagement, and relationships have been emerging over time but there appear to be enough common elements in their definition to use as a foundation for gaining a greater understanding of the nature of personal purpose and goals when a company's vision is symbiotic with the aspirational purpose or goals of the individuals.
I am exploring the role purpose and goals play in symbiotic relationship with a company vision, so a qualitative approach was used, allowing for an abstract theoretical exploration of the social experience (Charmaz,
A cyclical process of gathering data, coding, reflection and review through memos was used to allow theoretical ideas, categories, and themes to emerge. The themes were then examined for validity against the codes.
Data was gathered through interviews with open ended questions; allowing the interview process to be flexible, and the conversation to flow and evolve. The interviews were designed to pull out stories and personal experiences that illustrated connections between personal purpose, goals, corporate vision, positive relationships, engagement and motivation. Understanding that one's personal purpose is often evolving and changing, the questions were intended to capture the connections between their understanding of their personal purpose or goals at that time. The questions used during the interview process are listed in the Appendix—Supplementary Materials.
Because the literature indicated that even in the academic world the words purpose, meaning, calling, and driver are often used interchangeably and are considered interrelated, I was careful not to focus on just the word “purpose” during the interview.
The research was done in the context of high performing, senior leaders in U.S., for-profit organizations. Because I wanted to observe the way people articulated the role personal purpose and personal goals played in the alignment to, or possibly a symbiotic relationship with, a company's higher purpose vision, I selected a group that would most likely already be aligned to their company's vision.
I sought out companies that had a higher purpose statement that was communicated publicly. A higher purpose statement was defined as an articulated vision statement that is future directed and beneficial to the greater society. Companies with a published higher purpose statement were identified through personal networks and publications that recognized businesses as having a higher purpose vision. The initial quantity of possible candidates was large to assure there were enough companies that fit the criteria. Each recommendation was vetted to meet the definition of higher purpose by researching the company online, reviewing company literature, as well as asking people within the industry, and within the organization, to determine if the company indeed had a higher purpose that was shared within the company.
To assure a large enough pool of people to be interviewed, it was important that each company had multiple layers of management, enough breadth to include more than six high performing leaders, and an established performance review process. The organizations in which I conducted interviews all had annual sales revenue above $600 million.
I conducted interviews within four companies that met the criteria, and provided geographical and industry diversity. I was introduced to the CHRO, company president or divisional vice-president by mutual acquaintances. They connected me with an internal resource who identified members of the senior leadership team considered to be high performers. High performers were defined as individuals who had received an “exceeds expectations” or the equivalent rating on their performance reviews as established within the individual organizations, or were identified as high performers by their supervisor.
One of the outcomes of the goal-setting theory is that goals refer to important future outcomes and therefore, the selection of goals infers a desire to achieve a purpose or consequence; and success is associated with one's ability to pursue and accomplish goals that are important and meaningful (Locke and Latham,
Very early on it became clear that when the only choice a supervisor was given to describe the primary driver was purpose or goal, the perception of purpose was more favorable. Only 30% of the people interviewed were identified as goal driven by their supervisor. One statement made during an interview reflected this negative connotation of being goal driven:
“I mean, not goal driven the way that some people are, and as an example meaning, I want to be worth this by a certain date or I want to have this kind of house by, or I have a Lamborghini by the time I am this age. I don't have goals that overt that I need to be—I need to have this particular title by a certain age. I don't have goals like that” 4-6.
Through the axial coding process, distinct themes emerged but the categorization of the responses did not always match up with the original classification of goal or purpose driven as provided by their supervisor. Saldana discusses allowing conceptual frameworks to emerge from within the data (Saldaña,
To eliminate the possibility of misclassifications by the supervisor due to possible negative connotations with being goal driven, and to avoid projecting, I identified a related and unbiased classification that could be applied to the subject's responses. Although I am really studying goals vs. purpose, the task vs. socio-emotional drivers construct (Boyatzis et al.,
The way participants responded to the first question indicated their inclination for having task or socio-emotional/future oriented tendencies. Task-positive preferences are connected to being goal oriented and include a predilection for goal achievement, problem solving, decision making and the ability to control actions. Respondents were classified as task positive if their answers included being motivated by being acknowledged or appreciated for the work completed, maintaining balance, seeking opportunities, the work they do or solving problems. Socio-emotional preferences are much more future or purpose directed and are linked to social cognition, creativity and an openness to new ideas (Boyatzis et al.,
Group 1—Task positive—11 respondents | Group 2—Socio-emotional—13 respondents |
---|---|
Responses indicating a Task Positive Nature | Responses indicating a Socio-emotional Nature |
I love solving problems, I love taking things that are ambiguous and putting together a plan and attacking. | I get inspired by just making a difference. I love to engage. |
Ultimately (I am) trying to find the right balance between work and life. | I am most excited and want to do more of hands-on connections with those who are in need. |
My primary driver is—it's sort of self-absorbed and altruistic at the same time because I like being recognized and I like being appreciated. | I would say what gets me out of bed in the morning as far as employment goes is really understanding the long-term vision and believing in it and having a passion for it. |
I think what drives me is a problem that doesn't have a solution. Ultimately, pulling resources and digging deep. | For me it was about the overall concepts, working for the greater good of something. |
Eleven participants gave task positive responses and thirteen participants gave socio-emotional responses. One hundred percent of the participants who gave responses indicating socio-emotional preferences were perceived by their supervisor as being purpose driven. Yet only 55% of the participants who gave responses that would indicate a task positive preference were perceived as goal driven. When a participant gave more than one response, in all cases both responses fell into the same category. To assure I did not use the responses to this question in the coding process, the responses to this first question were removed from the coding process. The remainder of the questions were used for the qualitative analysis.
Twenty-four people were interviewed; seven interviews from one company, six interviews from two companies and five interviews at a fourth company. The interviews averaged an hour in length. Because of the narrow focus of my study, after twenty two interviews no new themes were emerging and it was not necessary to expand the interview pool beyond 24.
Fourteen interviews were conducted face-to-face in a quiet location selected by the participant. Eleven interviews were conducted over the phone with the participant finding a quiet location that would allow them to reflect without interruption. IRB protocol was followed to assure consent, accuracy and confidentiality. Seventeen participants were based out of their corporate office and seven were based in other cities, outside their corporate headquarters location, around the United States. Participants were located in the states of Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Massachusetts, New York and Wisconsin. After the interview, participants were categorized by industry, tenure at their current company, level within the company and gender, as illustrated in Table
Food service | 5 | 20.8 |
Oil and gas | 6 | 25 |
Consumer goods | 6 | 25 |
Distribution | 7 | 29.2 |
1–5 | 5 | 20.8 |
6–10 | 10 | 41.7 |
11–15 | 4 | 16.7 |
16+ | 5 | 20.8 |
Manager | 7 | 29.2 |
Director | 9 | 37.5 |
Sr. Leader | 2 | 8.3 |
C-Suite | 6 | 25 |
Female | 12 | 50 |
Male | 12 | 50 |
The interviews were coded using an open coding, exploratory approach as recommended by Saldaña (
Four distinct themes emerged with a noticeable difference in how people responded based on their tendency to be task driven or socio-emotional: reference, motivational driver, temporal perspective and life/work integration vs. separation.
One hundred percent of the respondents in the task positive group made one or more references to why something was important to, or impacted, them personally and/or how they put things through a self-referent lens before making decisions. Following are examples of responses that included a reference to themselves in how they choose to make decisions or validate a decision they had made.
“Sadly I didn't want the argument of having to deal with her being mad at me so I didn't do that” 3-6.
“It is something I like to do for myself” 3-5.
“I enjoy the leadership role not so much for the authority or for being in charge or whatever, but knowing that people are looking to me for direction” 1-7.
“How I validate myself, is my ability to help an organization get the information it needs and solve challenges” 4-5.
The socio-emotional group was more other-referent. Ninety-two percent of the respondents' comments were about how they are impacted by others and how their decisions are based on the needs or wants of other people.
“I always hope that I never put myself first, that is like the biggest thing for me is to always put other people first always, always, always” 4-1.
“And so when I see someone buzz through that and they think, wow, wait a minute, I just did this. I didn't think I could do it. What else can I do? And that gets me excited” 4-4.
“Another thing I guess I'd say I'm passionate about is getting people to be inspired to find whatever niche it is that they have the skill set and have the passion for” 2-5.
“I just made up my mind going home that day that I was not going to live a life where I couldn't really make an impact… the other thing that I really like about my job over the first 26 years is really helping people to get on a career path and make a difference in their life that way” 2-2.
“So I'm hoping that I'm able to inspire people to find what they can do within their own capabilities” 1-3.
One person in the socio-emotional group commented on how their personal needs were important but in the same sentence referenced the needs of others:
“I like to work so I can live. I think a balance is very important. I do enjoy working for a company that values people, I compare (my last company) and (my current company). At (my last company) when I first started, people were indeed resources, and resources are precious and you—you're trying to protect them. And over time, we had become assets and assets can be faded out and sold. And here, I think people are still the most important resource. And that's a really key part of the culture” 3-4.
A few of the statements from the self-referent group included others but in the same thought the person also referenced themselves. For example:
“I hate to ask for things. Like, as a single mom, I hate to ask for someone to watch my kids. I hate to have to say, can you please—would you help me. I know how that feels. And I'm sure that other people that are in need sometimes may not feel good about asking for help, but if you are showing them how to take care of themselves, everyone wants to be able to take care of themselves and have some dignity” 1-6.
Self-referent and other-referent comments were fairly equally distributed across all other descriptors.
Although both task positive and socio-emotional responses included the word “goal” in their vernacular, it was used differently. One hundred percent of the respondents that were categorized as task positive made references to being goal oriented or motivated by the accomplishment of the goal whereas 62% of the socio-emotional group referenced goals.
Goals create targets or align thought processes and vary in terms of the amount of specificity and time frame (Snyder,
The following statements are from individuals who tended to have a task orientation. They seem inclined to use goals to identify something that they felt they had the self-efficacy to accomplish, or that would give them a sense of completion and/or obligation.
“This is what I'm going to try to get done today” 3-5.
“There are times that I just, I can't wait to get to work. I can't wait to become engaged in a new problem. Where is the new problem?” 4-2.
“Well, I could – probably the most relevant one is the – is my goal to be home for dinner every night with my kids” 3-6.
“And so I think my goal – my job as his father is to help him – I don't want to feel guilty for the things he has, but I do want him to be grateful and by doing things for others it will actually demonstrate that higher purpose of like you know what, we do have – we have a responsibility as a matter of faith to do things for others” 3-6.
In contrast to this, the socio-emotional group appeared to use goals as steps in a process that were relevant to the extent that they provided guidance toward a greater purpose. This group was motivated by the bigger, overarching objective. The goals did not seem to be what drove their day-to-day activities or their decision making process. Responses that illustrate this are:
“I think you should have goals and think about the future. But I am fine doing a 180 any point in time you know, I am very comfortable doing that” 4-4.
“But I think my broader purpose is really helping find solutions to problems that actually work” 2-4.
“For me it was about the overall concepts, working for the greater good of something, and the lesson that I'm learning and the lessons that I can show my kid that, that was a greater benefit at the time, and I still very much would make the same decision. I think that that was more important than the financial aspect of the position” 2-5.
“Well, how can I then blend the personal goals that I have of making an impact on the world and like still have a job?” 2-4.
This is best illustrated by the proverb of giving someone a fish vs. teaching someone to fish—if you give someone a fish they'll eat for a day; if you teach someone to fish they'll eat for a lifetime. Tuckey, Bakker and Dollard credit Bass, Jung, Sosik, and Pearce for articulating the behavioral styles of transactional vs. transformational leadership. Transactional leadership is tied to motivating others through a direct relationship between the task and the reward, whereas transformational leadership is recognized as influencing, inspiring, and stimulating others (Tuckey et al.,
“What is the big, nasty problem that we are going to tackle today? It takes a lot of hard work but the success is so rewarding” 4-2.
“Well I mean at a very superficial level, having some success in my career has allowed me to provide for people” 4-5.
“I'm working with individuals and I can again align what they love and their passion and their strengths to what we need in the business, it's like the perfect marriage and it's, you know, I just have this great sense of satisfaction when I can make—I can help facilitate that process and I can help make that happen. It's very rewarding to me. I found great satisfaction in that” 3-3.
In contrast, 15% of the socio-emotional group talked about tasks that once finished could be considered complete, whereas 92% of this group spoke of their accomplishments as laying a foundation for a job that was far reaching and may not be completed by them personally. Often, they saw their role as inspiring others to take the lead, making a decision to do something based on the long-term implications. Individuals that are more socio-emotional in nature seem to exhibit behaviors and attitudes that are more transformational. They appear to be motivated to teach others to fish, creating a larger group of people who are working toward the same purpose. They appear to be driven to create a foundation for future progress, aligning people and inspiring people to transform something that is much bigger than themselves. For example:
“And so I want to be able to give them guidance, help maybe focus them, give them my experience, but ultimately empower them to really stretch and push them to go to places where they didn't think they could go before” 2-1.
“I want to live for all of us to get better and have better lives” 1-4.
“I think what drives who I am is the ability to help others get to where they – where they want to be” 4-3.
Males indicated a preference for having the end goal clear twice as often as females, but there did not appear to be much variance across other descriptors.
Fifty-five percent of the task positive group were very clear that life and work were separate and 77% of the socio-emotional group were equally clear that they sought work/life integration. Seventy-seven percent of the socio-emotional group also indicated that what they did was very personal and meaningful to them. This contrasted to only 36% of the task positive group that made reference to what they do at work as being personal.
Examples of statements from the task positive group are:
“Even if I'm here longer, I still try to just – whatever I need to do, I do it here and I try not to do it at home” 3-5.
“Work-life balance is about one of the most important things we can strive for. And you know you hear a lot about work-life integration. I don't really believe in that” 3-1.
“I am very focused, intently focused on trying to get home in time for dinner so we can have a family-style dinner” 3-6.
Socio-emotional driven individuals appear to be driven to achieve a purpose that transcends the activities throughout their day, at work and at home, as demonstrated by the following quotes:
“So I can take my knowledge of sustainability and have it be part of who I am, way beyond the walls of (my current company)” 4-3.
“This, to me, was like a self-fulfillment thing. I can go to work and do what I do every day and make my income this way” 2-5.
“I played soccer, and so it's an inner-city program where they combine soccer with poetry and creative writing, which I love. And so I think I was able to see the connection. It's not just at work, but how you combine your life with something that you're—that you're doing on a day-to-day basis” 4-3.
“I felt like I was able to connect and preserve the best of the world, and do it for a living. It just felt like such a natural connection” 4-3.
I studied high performing leaders who worked for corporations that espoused a higher purpose vision. I found that leaders were able to articulate their purpose or meaning and they were able to express alignment of their purpose or personal goals with that of the organization. One of the key discoveries was that personal purpose and goals do appear to play a role in a symbiotic relationship with a company vision and one's articulation of how they are motivated and engaged—but in different ways depending on whether a person is primarily socio-emotional driven or task driven. It was observed that some of these executives had a deep and far reaching sense of purpose which seemed tied to driving the intent of the organization's higher purpose vision. When alignment was felt through the sense of the greater purpose, there was a symbiotic nature to this alignment; a deep, almost spiritual, commitment to deploying all aspects of their life, e.g., work and home, to making the world a better place and helping the organization be a contributing part of their personal purpose. Others had a task oriented way of describing their purpose which appeared more instrumental in helping move the organization toward its overall purpose through the achievement of goals and objectives. When alignment was felt through the organization's support of one's personal goals, there was a great sense of commitment, but a clear delineation between work and life ambitions.
This difference was found to influence how high-performing leaders were motivated to act and engage. Task-driven individuals were found to be more self-referent; motivated by the actual accomplishment of goals/milestones; more likely to make decisions based on being able to see the completion of the task in the near future; and clear that life and work were separate. Individuals who were socio-emotional in nature were found to be more other-oriented; more likely to focus on the greater purpose of an activity; more likely to make decisions with a long term, big picture in mind; and more likely to see their work as an integral vs. separate part of their life.
It is important to note that both groups spoke of the importance of connecting with others and relationships with people. Half of the task positive group made references to team identity whereas no one in the socio-emotional group spoke about the personal connections to a team. There is an opportunity to explore this deeper in future research.
The senior leaders interviewed gravitated toward either a self-referent or other-referent perspective which aligned with having task positive tendencies or socio-emotional tendencies, respectively. This primary reference appeared to impact their decisions around whether to act on and stay engaged in an activity. The tendency to gravitate toward a self-referent or an other-referent position may indicate that there are two different categorical perspectives of, or possibly a continuum from, a task to socio-emotional orientation that correlates to an individual's reference. Individuals that are more self-referent appear to frame their decisions and determine their desire to act and engage based on how it impacts, affects or connects to them, personally. Other-referent individuals appear to be more motivated to act or commit if the decision or objective is framed in relation to its impact on others.
Self-determination theory distinguishes autonomous and controlled motivation, both of which include extrinsic motivation. Autonomous motivation combines extrinsic and intrinsic factors that impact the identification of the activities value whereas controlled motivation is driven by extrinsic rewards or punishment; in both cases, they are in relation to one's sense of self (Deci and Ryan,
Individuals that are inclined to be more task oriented appear to be more motivated by the actual goal or milestone, whereas socio-emotional individuals appear to focus on the purpose of the activity and the tasks or goals are only a means to a bigger objective. The task positive leaders appeared to analyze the measurable result or impact of the accomplishment of the goal to make their decisions regarding whether or not to proceed. The socio-emotional group seemed to focus on the impact it had on the more holistic, far reaching purpose.
In the task-positive network vs. the default mode network theory, Boyatzis et al. (
There appears to be a noticeable difference in the temporal perspective of the decisions being made by people who are task positive vs. socio-emotional. Decisions appear to be made based on either the immediate task (transaction) or because the decision is foundational to transforming or achieving a greater, longer term objective. This theme seems to impact why one makes the decisions he or she makes based on the locus of time used in reference to the goal or objective, e.g., one-off, task specific or a greater, longer term purpose orientation. This speaks to the time element that impacts the thought process behind the creation of goals referenced previously (Snyder,
The transactional vs. transformational leadership model has been used by practitioners to understand how to move their employees beyond a state of self-interest to a shared vision by providing meaning and purpose to their work. The underpinning is that a transformational leadership style uses inspiration through the connection to a higher purpose to motivate and engage followers to achieve a desired performance (Bass,
Task-positive and socio-emotional people seem to look at the integration or separation of work and life differently which appears to be connected to how they process decisions to act or engage. This finding seems to speak to the role their personal purpose or personal goals plays in creating alignment with that of the organization and how integrated their work is with the other aspects of their life. Dik and Duffy (
My research indicates that alignment to visions may exist in two very different ways, either as an alignment to a vision, or purpose, or support of personal goals. It may not be necessary to inspire people to see the greater good, or to stretch beyond themselves to be motivated, engaged and aligned with a higher purpose vision. Some people can have a personal purpose that is best described in a goal oriented fashion that is very instrumental in helping a company achieve its higher purpose vision, with a comfortable separation between work and life. At the end of the day, they will help the organization achieve its goal because they feel aligned to the company's vision even though they have a deep desire to keep their personal ambitions and the goals of the company separate.
People often choose a lower income to work in the not-for-profit world for personal reasons. This desire to be a part of something bigger, to make a difference, is something organizations may be able to tap into if their company vision is aligned with an employee's personal ambitions. Once this phenomenon is understood, it can be translated into a language that would help organizations understand how to harness this personal drive and intrinsic motivation.
The engagement and motivation of individuals who have a personal purpose or personal goals that can be accomplished through the work they do for an organization appears to be powerful and, once understood, could lead to a more flexible and personalized style of leadership. If an organization has a higher purpose vision that attracts employees with a vision symbiotic with that of the business, many of the traditional forms of external motivation may not be appropriate. By understanding why and what motivates task oriented vs. socio-emotional people to make decisions, a leader can apply the levers that trigger self-motivation instead of relying on a one size fits all.
A leader could increase motivation and engagement by providing alignment, resources and support in the form and perspective best understood and desired by each employee, then stepping away and allowing the employee to access and pull from the personal drive that comes from achieving their own aspirational purpose or goals in life. Similar to the conductor of an orchestra, the leader's primary duties would be to unify the organization, set the pace and tempo, and then listen, observe and direct as necessary to assure the organization is moving in the right direction. Employees who work for an organization that has a higher purpose, and are led by leaders who understand their drivers, can feel fulfilled and motivated as they use many of their waking hours to work toward their personal calling or purpose. At the end of the day, they can feel that their efforts were toward creating and supporting their ideal self, not the “ought self”, desired by someone else.
This study was done within for-profit organizations, but the indications that symbiotic visions impact people in different ways is strong enough that it would be illuminating to do similar research in not-for-profit organizations to understand the similarities and differences.
This study illuminates the possible benefits of connecting to an individual's aspirational purpose or goals in a meaningful way through the related task positive vs. socio-emotional construct. Future research should be done specifically on goal vs. purpose drivers. To do this, clarification of the terms would need to be done to create unbiased and other determined classifications. Even with the limitations of this study, two categories emerged. Future research should be done on how to connect one's personal purpose and goals to a company's higher purpose and how to fit it into current and developing leadership theory.
There is work being done to understand what leaders need to do to motivate and engage their employees. Further research could be done to understand the correlation between leadership theories and the follower's response. The discovery of an analytical vs. empathetic tension is very important to understanding how followers make decisions. This research supports this theory and may be able to extend it to understand if this is a two dimensional framework or a continuum impacted by one's motivational driver. More research should be done to understand this relationship and the implications to leadership and communication styles.
Although both groups referenced the importance of relationships, 50% of the task focused group spoke about their identification with teams compared with no one in the socio-emotional group referencing teams or the personal identity associated with a team. Relationships were explored in the context of this study only to understand if they existed or were absent. Additional research would have to be done to understand the role team identities play in task-positive vs. socio-emotional decision styles.
Because this was an empirical study, possible meanings of these discoveries must be inferred in light of former research. Additional studies will be needed to truly comprehend and test these interpretations.
The study was exploratory in nature and designed to discover the role of personal purpose and personal goals when a symbiotic relationship with a higher purpose company vision and positive relationships existed or was absent. Therefore, interviews were conducted with senior leaders that were considered high performers in organizations that had a recognized higher purpose vision. The study does not consider what happens when high-performing employees have a personal purpose but work within an organization that does not have a higher purpose vision, or what happens when employees are not senior leaders in the organization nor are considered high-performers. More research would need to be done before this could be applied to the greater employee population.
This study does not assume that personal purpose is stable. Personal purpose and goals can evolve and change over time. This study only captures a point in time in which the senior leaders interviewed identified with the higher purpose vision of their organization.
This study does not imply that goal-driven or purpose-driven tendencies are good or bad, simply different drivers. I purposefully did not provide clear definitions of both terms prior to the interviews in order to not bias the selection of the participants or the direction of the responses to the questions. The apparent bias against being goal based and various understandings of the meaning of being purpose driven created a limitation. I mediated this limitation by using an already existing construct to categorize the themes that emerged based on Saldana's approach to allowing conceptual frameworks to emerge in the coding process and therefore, identifying groups associated with these frameworks (Saldaña,
A fourth limitation is that all of the interviews were done with people in leadership positions. I recommend that a similar study be done of individuals not in leadership positions to understand if that variable impacts the findings.
Purpose and goals appear to play a role in alignment to visions, motivation and engagement. High performing leaders are able to articulate and understand the symbiotic nature of their purpose or personal goals with that of the organization, yet how they frame their motivation and engagement is different depending on their orientation.
By understanding the roles personal purpose and goals play in alignment to company vision, motivation and engagement, a leader can apply the levers that trigger self-motivation. Additional research in this area could break the code to helping leaders increase motivation and engagement through alignment, and by providing resources and support in the form and perspective best understood and desired by each employee, allowing the leader to then step away as employees access and pull from the personal drive that comes from achieving their own aspirational purpose or goals in life.
The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: