How I Found My Purpose {And Why You Should Too}
Writing my own obituary would have to be one of the most confronting tasks that I have ever been asked to do. And why, you ask, was I doing that? It was during the second year of my MBA, aged in my early 30s, and was part of a unit called “managing people”.
We were wisely informed that great managers of teams were also good at managing their own careers and lives, thus we had to write our obituary through the lens of how we would like to be remembered.
The tutor was trying to get us to recognise our Why – what is the purpose that keeps driving us to want to succeed (hint: on your worst day at work, it will keep you coming back for more)?
I wrote that I wanted to be remembered as someone who helped other women succeed. On reflection, one of the things that I was most proud of in the first 15 years of my career was that I had been in a position to enable women who worked directly to me to continue their role part-time when they returned from maternity leave.
The opportunity to balance their desire to work with their need to spend time with their children was something that none of my male managers had allowed me to do. Perhaps it was writing it down that led me to recognise that my Why was something I was already doing.
Having a purpose in life is like having a personal strategy. There were many times in my career when the choices that I made were influenced by my purpose. When you understand your purpose, you can work out a plan of action. In order for your purpose to have meaning, it needs to have impact on the way you live your life and the way that you lead in the workplace.
Leading Your Life
Start by asking yourself what impact you would be proud to have. Often our purpose is sparked by something that we cared deeply about as children, or an event that may have changed the way that we view the world.
From a young age I recognised that girls and boys are treated differently and it bothered me. I became determined to ensure that my gender did not stop from me from achieving my goals. When I was in a position of leadership, my purpose enabled me to act, even when there was a risk to my own career in doing so. The only time I have been sacked was after I blew the whistle on the sexual harassment of a junior female colleague by a senior male leader in my workplace. As you might imagine, that strengthened my resolve to make an impact with my purpose.
Leading A Team
When you are leading within an organisation, your purpose and values need to be strongly aligned to those of the organisation, otherwise you won’t be able to do your best work and make an impact. I have found it difficult to lead within an organisation that doesn’t believe in and respond positively to equality, and I have been drawn to leadership opportunities where I can have an impact on equality in the workplace. As a senior leader in a previous workplace, I discovered that a woman in another division of the organisation was paid less than a man in my division for doing exactly the same job. If your purpose is to help other women succeed, then you can’t be a bystander in a situation like that, even when that is the easier course to take. I raised the inequity on her behalf and the pay gap disappeared overnight.
Living and leading with a sense of purpose is extremely rewarding. It’s never too late to determine yours.