The right people want to work for a larger purpose than just a paycheck. They want to be part of something consequential. Mission matters. Leaders provide a mission to attract, recruit, retain, and energize employees and optimize performance.
Leaders have to select the right mission. They look at their history, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, stakeholders, capacity, and resources to choose or define the best mission for their organization. Even when a mission is picked for them, they know that mission can be defined differently (e.g., we will be the best in the industry at customer service) so they focus on a mission that produces the greatest success.
Leaders must define, clarify, reinforce, change as needed, and constantly communicate the mission. You are the message. Anyone touring your company or agency should be able to see, hear, and feel the mission and know it without even asking you what it is. No one visiting a Ritz-Carlton Hotel is ever confused about exemplary customer service being their mission.
Your team has to understand and believe in the mission. People don’t have to do it – they want to do it. The mission is on the hearts and minds of the team every day.
Everything is organized around the mission to ensure success. Operations match objectives. Everything is mission-centered: recruiting, hiring, evaluations, promotions, facilities, budget, equipment, technology, systems, policies, and procedures. The entire production process is driven by the mission. Leaders must recognize, reward, and promote employees who are accomplishing the mission.
Life is wonderfully different in these organizations. Ask an employee at a bank what they do and you will not hear “I make loans.” Instead, she answers “Our customers dream of owning a home or building a business and we make those dreams possible.” The construction worker doesn’t say “I pour concrete.” Instead, he replies, “We build cathedrals.” President Kennedy when touring Cape Canaveral stopped and asked a maintenance worker what he did there. The team member replied, “I am helping put a man on the moon.”
Supply the right team with an important and inspiring mission, a good culture, and the aligned operations to achieve it and they will.
From the Teacher: Leadership Lessons with Dr. Saviak is a weekly column with the esteemed Joseph C. Saviak, Ph.D., J.D., M.A., M.S., Management Consulting & Leadership Training
From the Teacher: Leadership Lessons with Dr. Saviak is a weekly column with the esteemed Joseph C. Saviak, Ph.D., J.D., M.A., M.S., Management Consulting & Leadership Training
