Powered by Purpose

This highly acclaimed book describes a revolution in advanced business outlook over the last decade within the context that companies with an authentic purpose outperform the market by 42%. Sarah has been working for over 15 years as a chartered psychologist, leadership consultant and dialogue coach at a high level with prominent companies and CEOs. Its content can be applied to organisations and teams at any scale, including the Network. The momentum is towards organisations actualising rather than simply paying lip service to purpose, and the benefits are palpable both in corporate and personal terms. Sarah explains the four capacities of purpose led leadership: cultivate leadership presence, make dialogue authentic, engage your stakeholders, and connect on purpose. In addition, there are three bridges of purpose in terms of lighting up the whole ecosystem, tuning a top team and enlivening your people. Her own personal experience provides an important backdrop to her energising work in enhancing well-being in what is a win-win situation.

The old Chicago model of profit maximisation at all costs – 'hard driving, strictly top-down, command and control focused, shareholder value obsessed, win at all costs' is in stark contrast to the emerging paradigm of purpose-led leadership, as summarised in a chart on page 38. The book is full of helpful diagrams and processes, for instance the relationship between conditioned and true self in terms of presence and supportive practices. The importance of dialogue is emphasised along a conversation continuum also involving deep listening as well as balancing advocacy with enquiry. Purpose itself has to be related to the founding intent as well as actual and espoused purpose while evolving towards a true and compelling purpose. Relationships and the sense of belonging are key to organisational ethos and feedback processes. This evolutionary development of purpose-driven capitalism focused on well-being is essential to our survival, and this book is a hugely valuable roadmap along the way.