Purpose really is the invisible leader

Posting a link to Corina Enache’s LinkedIn post, because I don’t think she has a blog. This one on purpose, with a hat tip to David Graeber’s work, is important. I was ruminating on this post as I walked in the Dentelles Massif yesterday in Provence. Here is a long quote: Purpose-driven culture, under [Graeber’s] lens, is a moral vocabulary the organisation uses to manage its people not a gift of coherence, engagement and direction. It reframes compliance as meaning and it asks you not just to do the work but to feel good about it on terms someone else defined. The tell is what happens when you don’t feel it, when the “purpose” doesn’t land for you, when the why feels thin or disconnected from your daily reality, that becomes your problem. A coaching conversation, a culture fit question. The purpose is never interrogated but you for sure will be. Here is the alternative: stop writing purpose statements and start asking purpose questions. What do the people doing the work think this…