Embracing Your Purpose Is A Big F**king Deal For Your Leadership Presence

I challenge you to think about someone who has strong leadership presence and not be able to clearly articulate their purpose. What was Martin Luther King, Jr.’s purpose? How about Gandhi? Michelle Obama’s purpose? Think about someone you know personally-what is their purpose?

To simply define purpose, it is your reason for getting out of bed in the morning. It is your “why”. To use a religious/spritual term, it feels like a calling or reason for being on earth. It is distinct from your passion. I have a friend who loves baking pies. She is constantly trying new recipes, giving pies to her friends and blogging about her newest creations. Many have told her she should open a pie bakery. She has been clear; baking pies is her passion, not her purpose. Her purpose is connecting people through communication. She is a top PR consultant.

Certainly your purpose and passion could overlap, but they can also be distinctly different. Why is knowing and living your purpose so important to leadership presence? It is a core component of courageous authenticity. Courageous authenticity is embracing your unique purpose and power and aligning your actions and words around them.

People with strong leadership presence know their purpose and organize their lives around this purpose. There is no daylight between purpose, words and actions. Additionally, this purpose is grounded in the interest of serving others. Serving others is at the heart of effective leadership. As stated by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.

I can’t think of a better definition of leadership-useful, honorable, compassionate, make some difference.

What is your purpose? How do you live your purpose every day?