How to Discover Your Leadership "Why" (When You've Been Too Busy Leading to Ask)
You know what your team needs to accomplish. You know your organization's priorities. You probably even know your stakeholders' unspoken expectations. But when was the last time you asked yourself: Why am I leading? Not the surface answer—"to drive results" or "to grow the business." The deeper why that makes your leadership approach uniquely yours.
Most leaders are so focused on the what and how that they never examine the why.
Oprah Winfrey says her purpose is "to inspire, teach, and lead people to be the best of themselves." That clarity is functional—it's the filter for every decision she makes. When you have that clarity, difficult decisions become simpler, your energy becomes more sustainable, and your impact multiplies because people connect with authenticity, not just competence.
Discovering your purpose involves three key elements:
Your leadership purpose starts with understanding what principles actually drive your decisions—what you're unwilling to compromise, what's remained constant throughout your career. These constants reveal your true values: not the aspirational ones you think you should have, but the lived ones that guide your choices.
Your leadership purpose isn't just about you—it's about the impact you create from your team outward to your organization and broader community. When you connect what matters to you with the change you want to create, your purpose crystallizes.
The gap between knowing your purpose and living it is consistent practice. Many leaders do the reflection work, feel inspired, then get pulled back into the daily grind. The leaders who transform their effectiveness create accountability (whether through coaching, colleagues, or their teams), build alignment into decisions, and measure what matters.
Leading With Purpose: A Guide to Find Your Purpose for Leadership and Multiply Your Impact provides worksheets, templates, and reflection questions for identifying and ranking your values, assessing your current alignment, gathering feedback from trusted colleagues, connecting your purpose to meaningful impact, and creating sustainable daily practices.
When you discover and live your purpose, you make better decisions with less exhaustion, build deeper trust, and sustain high performance without constant force of will.
The work begins with understanding what drives you and aligning it with how you lead.
Want to explore this work more deeply? Schedule a consultation to discuss how executive coaching can support your leadership development.
