Are you the kind of purpose-driven leader who’s more motivated by the mission than by the the business of running your organisation? Would you rather be championing social change than dealing with budgets, setting up procedures or scrolling through another spreadsheet?
You’re definitely not alone. And your organisation needs your passion for the mission to keep it moving forward.
However… purpose-driven leaders neglect the management side of things at their peril. Unless we make sure we’re
- looking after people
- bringing in money
- developing policies and procedures
- making sure we meet legal requirements….
our organisation can get into a right mess. And if we’re in a mess, we won’t be able to keep ‘doing the good stuff’ – rather, we will be stuffed.
It’s a constant balancing act.
Here are three of the things that I believe effective leaders do, to get the balance right:
- They prioritise and plan: They set clear goals; they invest time in working out what are the most important things to do in order to achieve these goals; and they make sure these don’t lose out to distractions. For a team, this kind of planning is often done best when it’s done collaboratively – setting aside some time as a team to agree goals and priorities is a great investment.
- They delegate: They bring in people with complementary skills who are good at the things they are not so good at or not so interested in. They make sure that these people understand the mission, and their particular role in it. Then they let them get on with it. I don’t mean they abandon them, rather they respect the skills, aptitude that these people bring. No micromanagement.
- They listen: Leaders who don’t listen and think they’re always right will find in harder to shed the burden of the day-to-day. This is because the people around them cannot grow and take ownership, they can only do exactly what the leader tells them. Hubristic leaders turn their people into drones who can’t actively contribute to the organisation’s growth and evolution.
It’s often said that leaders should be working ‘on’ the business not ‘in’ the business. But for a purpose-driven leader, spending at least a bit of time ‘in’ the business can be hugely personally satisfying, directly contributing to the communities or causes that they are passionate about. And periodically going ‘back to the floor’ can give a leader valuable insight into the organisation’s services, team and beneficiaries that they might otherwise miss out on.
By working ‘on’ the business and doing those three key things, leaders can carve out a bit more space to be ‘in’ the business from time to time, in a way that feeds their spirit and their organisation.
