The EQ Leader

Chapter 13Pillar III: Developing Insight

Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful, that's what matters to me.

—STEVE JOBS

Insight

Insight Definition:

1. Communicate with purpose, meaning, and vision:
2. Communicates a purpose, meaning and vision, hopeful view of the future, compels employees to reach and exceed goals.

What does it mean to have a purpose-driven leadership? The origins of leading with purpose can be traced back to the psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl. Following his release from the concentration camp, Frankl set about writing his masterwork, Man's Search for Meaning.¹ Camp survivors, Frankl had observed, were those who believed their lives had meaning and purpose amid the starvation and degradation. The nihilists and cynics perished.

Being a purpose-driven organization has huge advantages today. There's a major push on among companies around the world to become more purpose driven. In a recent Harvard Business Review article, it was written, “academics argue persuasively that an executive's most important role is to be a steward of the organization's purpose. Business experts make the case that purpose is a key to exceptional performance, while psychologists describe it as the pathway to greater well-being.”²

Mark Bonchek, also writing in the Harvard Business Review, describes three kinds of purpose.³ First, purpose can be about values—who you are and what you stand ...