Leading with Strategy

17Defining Your North Star: Overview

In traditional strategic planning, one of the first steps is revisiting the foundational elements: purpose, mission, vision, and values. This core framework is meant to articulate what the organization stands for and where it's headed. While values have always been a more distinct category, clearly guiding behavior and culture, the lines between purpose, mission, and vision have become increasingly fluid over time. Organizations often define and combine these elements in different ways, leading to a wide variety of permutations.

For example, some refer to “our ambition” to blend purpose and vision into a single, future‐oriented statement. Others use “ambitions” to mean strategic objectives or goals, creating an entirely different layer of meaning. The reality is that there's no universally accepted formula for these terms. Each organization must define them in a way that resonates with its identity, culture, and aspirations. Procter & Gamble, for instance, uses PVPs—Purpose, Values, and Principles—as its guiding compass, bypassing the traditional “mission–vision” language altogether.

In my observation, the use of the word “mission” has been declining, while “purpose” has become more prominent, especially with the rise of purpose‐driven leadership and frameworks. Influential thinkers like Simon Sinek (2009) have popularized the idea of starting with “why,” urging organizations to connect with a deeper reason for being. This has been reinforced ...