Purposeful leadership means that people in your organisation understand what their work counts for and are allowed to help shape it. It rests on 6 principles: Equal footing, participation, personal responsibility, authenticity, appreciation and trust. If you live them, you raise satisfaction in the company and your own standing.
If power, control and decision-making authority make up your whole vocabulary for leadership, you might want to sit down first. In 2018 I wrote an editorial on this for HERO MAGAZINE, published by the personal branding agency werdewelt, under the title “Macht. Führung. Sinn.” (Power. Leadership. Purpose.). If anything, the topic has gained weight since then.
Purposeful leadership describes a leadership style that gives people orientation about the why of their work and leaves them room to help shape that why. It combines a clear direction with genuine involvement.
Purpose emerges when people see the connection between their task and the benefit for customers or colleagues. Making that connection visible is leadership work.
Motivation research supports this. In their self-determination theory, Edward Deci and Richard Ryan have described 3 basic psychological needs since the 1980s: Autonomy, competence and relatedness. Where the environment meets these needs, motivation grows from within.
If you know the German comedy series “Stromberg”, you have the counter-model in front of you. Bernd Stromberg, head of the claims settlement department M to Z at a fictional insurance company, never misses a wisecrack or a chance to show off his power. The character works because almost everyone knows a real-life model for him.
As an executive coach, I come across milder versions of him again and again. Wherever people work together, changes are pending and something new emerges, there’s friction and quiet jostling for position.
Stromberg shows what a leader had better avoid. It’s only funny on screen. In a real office, such bad leadership behaviours cost motivation, trust and, in the end, good people.
Equal footing means: The person in front of you experiences that arguments count, regardless of hierarchy level. Participation puts this into practice, for example when a team is involved in decisions whose consequences it bears. A simple test: How do you react when the youngest person in the room contradicts you? Word of your answer gets around faster than any mission statement.
Personal responsibility needs room and clear goals. If you delegate and then check every step, you quietly take the responsibility back. So clarify in advance which decisions lie with the team and on which ones you want to be kept informed.
Authenticity shows in the match between words and actions. Your employees recognise appreciation by the attention you pay to contributions, including the small ones.
Trust is the result of the other five. You can’t order it, and it grows more slowly than it’s lost.
How you come across is decided by the people around you. Leaders who convey purpose and allow co-creation gain a loyalty that holds even in difficult phases. Their teams talk about them differently, and that talk shapes their reputation across the whole company.
Often a single sentence that names the why is enough. “We’re rebuilding the process because customers currently wait two weeks for an answer” carries more weight than any strategy slide.
Power remains part of the role. You’ll need it less often, because people come along of their own accord. If you rarely have to insist on your position, you’ve usually used it well.
In March 2022 I took up the topic again in my LinkedIn newsletter on purpose in leadership, at the time shaped by turbulent years. This way of leading has proven itself to me in exactly those phases, because people in uncertainty look for a why.
Purposeful leadership is more demanding than leading through power. It requires you to explain your decisions, withstand disagreement and really hand over responsibility. That takes time, and in my experience it pays off several times over.
In my coaching engagements I often see leaders treat explaining as a waste of time, until they notice how much time it costs to correct decisions nobody understood.
I see two limits. Purpose can be abused: If you use purpose rhetoric to justify extra work, you burn trust faster than any Stromberg. And some situations simply call for a clear instruction, for example in an acute crisis where there’s no time for participation.
My verdict stays clear all the same: If you lead through purpose and participation, you need power less often and have it available when it counts.
Purposeful leadership gives people a clear answer to the question of what their work counts for and involves them in shaping it. It combines direction with room to act.
Yes. Hierarchy settles who decides in the end. How you reach that decision and how you explain it is still up to you, even in a classic line organisation. In my observation, a well-reasoned decision has a particularly clear effect in strongly hierarchical companies, because employees experience one less often there.
With the next decision that affects your team. Explain the why before you announce the what, and ask who wants to help shape the implementation. Then watch what changes in engagement.
That was the title of my editorial in HERO MAGAZINE in 2018. The title deliberately puts power at the beginning, because that’s where many leaders start, and purpose at the end, because that’s where the more lasting effect lies.
Further reading on hofmann.coach: Purpose in leadership: Why people follow a why in turbulent times · Leadership lives in the minds of those you lead · Corporate culture: What you can change as a leader · Leader as coach: How trust and standing grow in your team
Note: This article was first published on 27.09.2018 and was revised and expanded in October 2026.
Cristian Hofmann is an executive coach in Zurich and Schaffhausen (MAS Coaching & Supervision BSO, Forbes contributor). Over more than 20 years he has coached more than 1,500 leaders: CEOs, executive boards and leadership teams in Switzerland, with measurably agreed goals and, on request, pay-for-results. More about Cristian Hofmann.
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