Hi everyone,
This is Fiona English and this talk is a shortened version of a speech I gave which I called The Three Things That Matter in Purpose and Leadership and I hope you enjoy it.
Purpose and leadership are topics I speak and write about a lot,
Yet despite my passion for these topics I worry that conversations on both of them have become so commonplace that we've forgotten what purpose and leadership are really about.
So today in this talk I'm not going to tell you what I think should matter to you but rather I'm going to ask all of you three questions because I believe each of us need to know our own personal answers to these questions if we really want purpose and leadership to become more evident in our life and work.
My first question is who do you want to be in the world?
Now if I logged onto social media today it wouldn't take me long to come across taglines such as find your purpose or what's your why or how to lead and my issue with all of these statements is they're very action orientated.
They suggest that we must look outside of ourselves for purpose and leadership but the truth is that purpose and leadership are rooted in who you are not what you do.
Now this is a big learning for me because I'm quite an action orientated person but I quickly had to learn that having more purpose and leadership in my life was not about what I would do but rather about the person I needed to become.
Because purpose and leadership are both disruptive forces and the thing they want to disrupt is you.
You must be willing to disrupt yourself to change how you're currently showing up in the world to stop talking about purpose and leadership but rather embody purpose and leadership.
I believe there's a space where you meet the world,
A space where your impact is already felt.
Each decision you make,
Each action you take is a vote for the person that you want to be in the world.
Do not underestimate the power of this,
It defines your capacity to lead and grows your ability to do so with real purpose.
My second question for you is what are you willing to risk?
I've learned that there's little in life worth having that doesn't carry some risk and purpose and leadership are no different.
While the financial risk of purpose and leadership are well documented,
The big success stories visibly celebrated,
For me the real risk they require is emotional risk.
Because purpose and leadership require you to be seen,
To be vulnerable.
I've yet to meet someone living a life of deep purpose or leading in a clear way who is not taking ongoing emotional risk,
Standing up for something important,
Stepping outside of the status quo,
Making decisions which are different.
This is important because at some point to really show purpose and leadership it will require you to be in conflict with what other people consider success to be and it is in these moments of emotional risk in which purpose and leadership will be most evident.
In my previous career I spoke at events and conferences every week.
Most weeks I travelled to a different city around the world to speak.
I was quite accustomed to being on stage,
Yet I couldn't have given this talk five years ago.
I would have worried too much about what other people thought.
To do the purpose-led work I do today and speak and write about my ideas,
I had to overcome what I believed others might think.
Ultimately I had to get over myself,
Get over the internal barriers inside me to allow myself and my work to be more fully seen in the world,
To show up and be more purpose-led and be the leader that I aspire to be.
The famous mythologist Joseph Campbell said,
It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life.
Where you stumble there lies your treasure.
There are places in each of us that we do not like,
Decisions we avoid because it will expose how we feel were really not enough.
In my experience the deeper sense of purpose you crave is there,
Waiting for you to have the courage to claim it,
Waiting for you to be the leader you're called to be.
And my last question for you is how will you inspire?
So why does inspiration matter for purpose and leadership?
Because purpose and leadership are always about collective outcomes.
The epitome of purpose and leadership is to be in service of other people and collective outcomes mean you must be able to mobilise and inspire others.
We hear leaders talk a lot about motivation today but for me motivation is cheap inspiration.
Motivation means that you have a goal and you want me to help you achieve that goal.
Purpose-led people use a different playbook,
They understand inspiration means that we have a goal and my role is to inspire you to want to work together to achieve that goal.
We all need people like this to inspire us to be bigger versions of ourselves so your job as a leader is to make yourself that person,
To become inspirational.
A quote I have in my office is a writer is only as interesting as their life.
To rephrase,
A purpose-led leader is only as inspiring as their life.
To be an inspiration to others you must first be an inspiration to yourself,
To not allow your definition of a successful life to simply mean successful work or business,
To be bigger than your work or business because when we choose to live an inspired life we naturally inspire those around us with our passion,
Our zest for life and our drive.
Let me leave you all with a final thought.
Often we feel to live and lead in this manner is too big,
Too much change to take on and truthfully I empathise.
Some days I feel overwhelmed by the problems we have in the world and feel powerless to solve them.
Yet I've learned that the power of purpose and leadership can be felt daily in the smallest of ways.
Each of us must live and lead with intention knowing that even when we can't see it we're impacting somehow or somewhere.
Nothing we do is insignificant.
Everything creates a ripple and impacts the world around us because purpose and leadership transcend position and purpose.
We are all in the same position,
Power or politics.
They sit in each of us taking responsibility for being a global citizen,
Responsible for our actions and through those actions the welfare of others and our planet.
To believe that we can make a difference.
My one hope today is that I've inspired you to demand greater depth of leadership and purpose from yourself and others,
That you won't settle for conversations and purpose and leadership which lack truth and meaning and that are personal answers to the three questions I pose today which are who do you want to be?
What are you willing to risk for that?
And how will you inspire?
