{"id":5056,"date":"2020-07-16T09:13:28","date_gmt":"2020-07-16T09:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tpcleadership.com\/tr-tr\/uncategorized\/team-leadership-meaning-and-purpose\/"},"modified":"2023-10-19T16:23:47","modified_gmt":"2023-10-19T16:23:47","slug":"team-leadership-meaning-and-purpose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tpcleadership.com\/tr-tr\/kulturel-degisim\/team-leadership-meaning-and-purpose\/","title":{"rendered":"Meaning and purpose: how the best teams are created"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our Leading with Meaning and Purpose blog series continues with TPC Leadership Partners\u00a0Andrew McDowell<\/a>\u00a0and Hilary Harvey<\/a>\u00a0discussing the importance of leaders connecting their teams to a collective sense of meaning and purpose.<\/span><\/p>\n

Team leadership<\/h2>\n

So far in our conversations about meaning and purpose we have covered personal leadership and relational leadership. Both these layers influence the wider dynamic of team leadership.<\/p>\n

The idea of \u201chigh-functioning teams\u201d is often discussed as a hallmark of great organisations. Many organisations work hard to create the conditions where teams can thrive; where the total is greater than the sum of the parts, where team members feel compelled to contribute and work together at the positive edge of their collective performance.<\/p>\n

One of the most important success factors in collective team performance, is the conscious consideration of meaning and purpose at the team level. Having a sense of working towards a purpose can act as a powerful inspiration that keeps team members\u2019 sense of adventure alive, makes the horizon worth exploring and helps people to feel like they truly belong.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is the story we\u2019re telling ourselves and others about why we are doing what we do? What\u2019s the purpose we\u2019re contributing to? How are we making meaning together? It\u2019s rare to hear a leader say, \u2018these are the things we\u2019re going to be talking about on a regular basis.\u2019\u201d says Andrew McDowell, a Partner at TPC Leadership. \u201cBut that\u2019s exactly what we need to be doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Creating synergy of purpose<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Having a unified sense of purpose has the potential to turn a group of people with functions and job descriptions into a team of fully engaged human beings, who are less interested in what\u2019s in their contract and more interested in what\u2019s possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people are inspired by something greater than themselves, their individual purpose can become aligned with a group purpose,\u201d says Andrew. \u201cThere is synergy. A shift from thinking just about \u2018me\u2019 to thinking more about \u2018we\u2019. A shift from focusing on personal goals to group goals, from personal benefits to the benefits for others, from individual potential to group potential, and most importantly, from individual meaning to collective meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n

High performing individuals can only create what their own talents might forecast. But teams unified in meaning and purpose gain new qualities. You\u2019re multiplying, not simply adding strengths.<\/p>\n

Purpose goes full circle<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cHigh functioning teams also value and celebrate diversity,\u201d says Hilary Harvey, Partner at TPC Leadership \u201cand innovation comes as a result.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teams that are united by purpose, and create shared meaning from what they do, start collaborating more. Diverse minds thinking together, finding more innovative and relevant solutions as a result. Because these teams innovate more, they perform better \u2013 creating a virtuous circle as they celebrate and find meaning in these successes, and consciously connect these to the bigger picture purpose that they are in service of.<\/p>\n

So paradoxically, although team members may have let go of some of their individual needs in favour of the group need, ultimately this sacrifice is more than worth the cost, as people feel the deep reward of recognizing their personal contribution towards the collective purpose.<\/p>\n

How to create a shared purpose<\/strong><\/h2>\n

So how do you do it? How do you create a shared sense of purpose in a team? How do you find shared meaning on the journey? The beginning of the thread that ties everyone\u2019s sense of purpose together is trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrust is a vastly underestimated quality\u201d says Andrew. \u201cPeople need to know each other to believe in each other.\u00a0 Without trust, things stay at the transactional level, the focus remains on the exchange and what\u2019s in it for me.\u00a0 Without trust, people find it very difficult to let go of their individual needs in pursuit of a team purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without trust, teams full of skilled and driven individuals run the risk of working in competition with each other, seeking personal accomplishments rather than collaborating for team successes. Teams that proactively seek to build trust through prioritising real connection with each other open themselves up to new and unexpected possibilities, leveraging the unique contribution and perspective of each member.<\/p>\n

Leaders set the tone <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Leaders can offer a great service to their teams and the wider organisation by giving permission to open up conversations about meaning and purpose.\u00a0 \u201cIt really helps if the leader sets the tone by engaging in those conversations themselves\u201d, says Andrew.\u00a0 \u201cShowing a little bit of vulnerability by opening up about what\u2019s really important to them and talking about what they feel they are contributing to at a bigger level, can create the permission for others to do the same.\u00a0 It takes the conversation out of the transactional and into the realms of hope and possibility\u201d.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to become stuck in conversations about day to day activities and forget about the purpose you are contributing to. Leaders can help bridge that gap. When we start talking about what we are contributing to in the bigger picture, we can get more personally invested in what we are doing and in each other\u2019s success.\u00a0 Andrew continues, \u201cPeople want to feel connected to a bigger purpose, and they want to be led by people who can help them connect to it. Feeling part of a collective sense of purpose creates confidence and value, and it makes it much easier to extract meaning\u201d.\u00a0 These issues are vital at the team level, where buy-in and personal investment from all the individuals can create such a massive difference.<\/p>\n

Want more insight on how to move forward?<\/strong> Get in touch with us<\/strong> to find out how we can help.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our Leading with Meaning and Purpose blog series continues with TPC Leadership Partners\u00a0Andrew McDowell\u00a0and Hilary Harvey\u00a0discussing the importance of leaders connecting their teams to a collective sense of meaning and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rank_math_title":"Team leadership & Meaning and Purpose | Blog | TPC Leadership","rank_math_description":"This blog focuses on team leadership and the importance of leaders connecting their teams to a collective sense of meaning and purpose.","rank_math_focus_keyword":"","editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[],"featured-blog-post":[],"page-type":[],"class_list":["post-5056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kulturel-degisim"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tpcleadership.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tpcleadership.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tpcleadership.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tpcleadership.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tpcleadership.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tpcleadership.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tpcleadership.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tpcleadership.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tpcleadership.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tpcleadership.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5056"},{"taxonomy":"featured-blog-post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tpcleadership.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured-blog-post?post=5056"},{"taxonomy":"page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tpcleadership.com\/tr-tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/page-type?post=5056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}