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2017 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

8. Meaning & Purpose in Leadership: What Are You Willing to Bet Your Life On?

verfasst von : Satinder Dhiman

Erschienen in: Holistic Leadership

Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan US

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Abstract

Finding a deeply profound meaning in all we do lends a certain spiritual sanctity to our toils that goes deeper than life’s material ploys. Pursuing meaningful work provides an abiding purpose to our life and redeems our existence through our contribution. It is the quest for meaning that keeps the battle of life going in face of the inevitable. If meaning is about discovering one’s unique gifts, purpose is about sharing those gifts for the good of others. Before one becomes a leader, the focus is on discovering and living the personal meaning. After one becomes a leader, the focus is on helping others discover and live meaning in their lives.

Given the fact that most of us spend majority of our waking hours at work, it is natural to seek meaning and purpose in work and at work. To succeed in the twenty-first century, leaders of organizations must offer a greater sense of meaning and purpose for their workforce. Holistic leaders first seek fulfillment through meaning, purpose and contribution and help others to do the same. This chapter explores how holistic leaders seek and live their highest meaning and purpose. This chapter reviews the work of Victor Frankl and Michael Ray in illustrating how leaders find transcendent meaning in all they do.

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Vorheriges Kapitel Spiritual Leadership: A Superior Way to Be and Serve

Nächstes Kapitel Find Your Fulfillment: Winning Habits of Highly Fulfilled Leaders

Nick Craig and Scott A. Snook, “From Purpose to Impact: Figure Out Your Passion and Put It to Work”, Harvard Business Review, 92, no. 5, (May 2014): 105–111.

Christopher Michaelson, Michael G. Pratt, Adam M. Grant, and Craig P. Dunn, “Meaningful Work: Connecting Business Ethics and Organization Studies”, Journal of Business Ethics, 121 (71), (2014): 77–90.

Alan M. Saks, “Workplace spirituality and employee engagement,” Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 8 (4), (2011): 317–340.

E. F. Schumacher and Peter N. Gillingham, Good Work (New York: HarperCollins, 1980), 4.

Abraham H. Maslow and Deborah C. Stephens, Maslow Business Reader (New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2000), 12.

Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer, Do Happier People Work Harder? New York Times, Sept. 3, 2011. Also see Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer, The Progressive Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2011).

Annamarie Mann and Jim Harter, The Worldwide Employee Engagement Crisis, Gallup Business Journal, January 7, 2016. Retrieved March 17, 2016: http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/188033/worldwide-employee-engagement-crisis.aspx?g_source=EMPLOYEE_ENGAGEMENT&g_medium=topic&g_campaign=tiles.

Barry Schwartz, Why We Work [A TED Book] (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015), 3.

Jeffrey Pfeffer, The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Review Press).

The Value of Purpose-Driven Leaders. Retrieved March 27, 2016: http://aiesec.org/value-purpose-driven-leaders/.

James Aurty, Life & Work: A Manager’s Search for Meaning (New York: William Morrow & Company, 1994).

Lou Marinoff, Plato, Not Prozac! Applying Philosophy to Everyday Problems (New York: Harper, 1999), 210.

Barry Z. Posner quoted in a Foreword to Robert A. Giacalone and Carole L. Jurkiewicz, Handbook of Workplace Spirituality and Organizational Performance (London: Routledge, 2nd edition, 2015), xi.

Victor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Cutchogue, NY: Buccaneer Books Inc., 1993), 90.

Ibid., 12.

Ibid., 75.

Ibid., 75–76.

Ibid., 109.

Cited in Ibid., 9. (emphasis in the original).

Ibid., 12.

David McCullough at Wellesley High School Commencement: ‘You Are Not Special’ (Video). Retrieved April 12, 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lfxYhtf8o4.

Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, 119.

Joel Barker, The New Business of Paradigms, DVD, 2001, Star Throwers, St. Paul, MI.

Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, 110.

Ibid.

Ibid., 142 (emphasis added).

Ibid., 115.

Ibid.

Ibid., 49 (emphasis added).

Ibid., 118.

Ibid., 117.

Cited in Alex Pattakos, Prisoners of our Thoughts: Victor Frankl’s Principles at Work (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2004), ix (emphasis added).

Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, 134.

Ibid., 151.

Ibid., 113–114.

Robert A. Emmons, The Psychology of Ultimate Concerns: Motivation and Spirituality in Personality (New York: The Guilford Press, 2009), 138.

Ibid., 137–138 (emphasis added).

Ibid., 138.

University of Michigan psychology professor Christopher Peterson, whose research focused on strengths of character, used to tell his audiences that if they wanted to know the essence of his talk about positive psychology in 5 seconds, it would be: ‘Positive psychology is what makes life worth living.’ When asked what positive psychology is all about, Peterson would often say, “Other people matter—that’s all!”

Christopher Peterson, “What makes life worth living?” (Part 1), UM News Service. Video retrieved March 26, 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRiIAqGXLKA.

Jaime L.Kurtz and Sonja Lyubomirsky, Towards a Durable Happiness, The Positive Psychology Perspective Series (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2008), 21.

Martin Seligman, Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment (New York: Free Press, 2002), 260–262 (emphasis added).

Ibid., 249.

Emmons, The Psychology of Ultimate Concerns, 139.

This has led some to conclude that Buddhism must be a life-denying and pessimistic approach to life. But the Buddha taught Four Noble Truths about life, not just one. After analyzing the causes of suffering in the Second Noble Truth, the Buddha goes on to state that it is possible to end this suffering (Third Noble Truth) and prescribes a path called The Noble Eightfold Path to the cessation of suffering (Fourth Noble Truth). See Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught. Rev. and exp. ed. (New York: Grove Press, 1974), 17–19.

William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Folger Shakespeare Library (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), 179.

Arthur Schopenhauer and E.F. J. Payne (tr.) The World as Will and Representation, Volume 2 (New York: Dover Publications, 1966), 239.

Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge (New York: Dover Publications, 2004), 243.

Albert Camus and Justin O’Brien (tr.), The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays (New York: Vintage, 1991), 123 (emphasis added).

Emmons, The Psychology of Ultimate Concerns, 144.

Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, 117.

Ibid., 75.

This seems to be based on Nietzsche’s observation, “You admire the beauty of my spark, but you don’t feel the cruelty of the hammer on the anvil that makes it happen”. Only Nietzsche could have felt and written something so stark and vivid.

Emmons, The Psychology of Ultimate Concerns, 156.

Martin Buber, Tales of Hasidism (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 1987), 251.

Author unknown.

Michael Ray, The Highest Goal: The Secret that Sustains in every Moment (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2004), xx–xxi.

Ibid., 7.

Ibid., 8–11.

Ibid., 13–15.

The Value of Purpose-Driven Leaders. Retrieved March 27, 2016: http://aiesec.org/value-purpose-driven-leaders/.

Ibid.

Craig and Snook, “From Purpose to Impact,” HBR, May 2014, 111.

See Abraham Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature (New York: The Viking Press, 1971). For a scholarly presentation of self-transcendence as the highest need, see: Mark E. Koltko-Rivera, “Rediscovering the Later Version of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Self-Transcendence and Opportunities for Theory, Research, and Unification”, in: Review of General Psychology, 2006, Vol. 10, No. 4, 302–317. Retrieved March 25, 2016: http://academic.udayton.edu/jackbauer/Readings%20595/Koltko-Rivera%2006%20trans%20self-act%20copy.pdf.

While this quote has not been definitively sourced to Mark Twain, it still conveys a powerful message.

Titel: Meaning & Purpose in Leadership: What Are You Willing to Bet Your Life On?
verfasst von: Satinder Dhiman
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan US
Buch: Holistic Leadership
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-55570-0

Electronic ISBN: 978-1-137-55571-7

Copyright-Jahr: 2017
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55571-7_8

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