The power of showing, not just telling, purpose to your team

Many of today’s employees want more than a paycheck. They want work that means something, tied to a clear mission. Leaders often understand their own purpose well but struggle to pass that clarity to their teams. Without it, employees can feel like they are working through a list of disconnected tasks. Over time, that shows up in engagement, motivation and turnover.

Joining us on this episode of Business Trends Today is Amy Summers, Speaker, Entrepreneur, and Author of Lift: 10 Mentorship Touchpoints to Empower Your Team and Accelerate Your Career. Summers returns to ASBN’s Mentorship Moments for Business Leaders series to discuss Touchpoint Three: Provide Purpose.

Summers believes that leaders need to show employees the real-world impact of their work, not just tell them about it.

Where purpose gets lost

Most leaders know exactly why their work matters, said Summers. The disconnect happens when that clarity never reaches the team.

"If they don't do a good job of transferring the purpose, then their team can just feel like they're doing a bunch of random tasks."

While many younger professionals entering the workforce often choose mission and values over a bigger paycheck, small businesses and startups tend to benefit from this shift, as employees are often looking for a chance to help build something.

According to Summers, purpose does not have to come from a dramatic mission. A business does not need to be saving the planet to give employees a reason to care. It might mean showing a team how their work saves customers time, improves efficiency or gives people more time with their families. What matters is that leaders paint a clear picture of the outcome and immerse their team in it, rather than leaving them to guess.

Experience matters more than explanations

Additionally, Summers notes that purpose is hard to teach and easier to experience. That means immersing a team in real, hands-on situations rather than simply explaining the mission.

For a company that sources ingredients from a farm, that might mean bringing the team to see where those ingredients come from and how much impact that work has once it reaches the final product, Summers said.

Summers applies the same thinking when training new hires at her public relations firm. Rather than easing people in with lighter assignments, she gives them the hardest part of the job first.

That approach, which Summers calls “trial by fire” in Lift, immerses new employees in the mission immediately instead of holding them back with menial tasks for months or years before finding out if they are engaged. 

Building purpose in the remote world

Screens, Summers contends, make it harder to build the kind of connection that purpose depends on. Remote and hybrid work, she adds, can create distance between leaders and their teams, and that distance often shows up as disengagement.

"Anytime we have screens involved, it's keeping us away from that human touch and really connecting." 

Further, she notes that a video call carries less energy than an in-person conversation, and leaders cannot expect their teams to close that gap on their own. Instead, she said leaders need to create opportunities for real, in-person connection. That could mean bringing employees into the office, taking the team to dinner or a conference, or organizing a visit to see the product in the field.

Summers mentioned a retail tour as an example, in which walking a team through a store to observe how a product displays on the shelf and how it stacks up against competitors helps employees understand the customer perspective better.

One simple action

Connecting any task to the bigger picture is one of the simplest ways leaders can strengthen purpose, according to Summers.

She pointed to a recent example from her own team, when she asked an employee to put together a presentation for a client’s board of directors without explaining why. Once the employee asked, Summers explained that the client was questioning the firm’s work and the contract was at risk.

“I think leaders need to not be scared of sharing the bigger vision, even if it sounds scary, because that’s when you get that drive for purpose and you understand what you’re doing,” said Summers.