Job, Career, or Purpose?

Each employee’s sense of purpose varies, as should a leader’s approach to managing them.

Charn P. McAllister and Curtis L. Odom

March 23, 2023

The importance of purpose is a common refrain in the modern workplace and in the popular press. Organizations and their leaders should work diligently to instill a sense of purpose in each one of their employees, we’re told. But the Great Resignation laid bare the fact that many employees simply don’t care about a company’s purpose; they want a stable career or, sometimes, just a job for the time being. Furthermore, some of those employees will never care about their organization’s purpose.

This notion, which is often glossed over in writings on instilling purpose, should give ...