Because so many of our results as managers and leaders depend on our underlying assumptions, beliefs, attitudes and values, it behooves us to attempt to determine or identify those who have the potential for positive impact in our organizations. This means identifying what our overall purpose needs to be and how we wish to affect organizational impact.

I believe that 100% of managers would say that they wish to have or create a positive impact on their respective organizations. Who in their right mind would want to create a negative impact?

Unfortunately, too many managers tend to react based on their own emotional response to a situation rather than planning a purposeful response. Purposeful management is based on vision. This promotes a difference in the style of inquiry needed when faced with a situation. Vision is forward thinking and does not look back. It is based on possibility and not blame.
Purposeful management asks, “What would it look like if this problem was solved?” or even better, “What do we want to create?” vs. “What needs to be fixed?”

I have referred often to a manager’s need for self-awareness. It is through self-awareness that we begin to identify our underlying assumptions, beliefs, attitudes and values. Self-awareness is the key for assisting us in breaking free from our psychic prisons. A psychic prison is the collection of a person’s limiting beliefs -- limiting beliefs about self and others that prevent us from becoming the most that we can be, and prevent us from allowing others to reach their potential.

Dr. Ken Blanchard, noted organizational and management consultant, trainer and author of the One Minute Manager series, believes that “People want to be magnificent!” I have been told by people who have worked with Dr. Blanchard that his actions support that belief. His behavior toward people is governed by this belief. How different his behavior would be if he believed that people were lazy and really didn’t want to work.

Purposeful management demands self-accountability. In order to be purposeful we must take full responsibility for our actions and behaviors. We must adopt a continuous quality improvement attitude towards ourselves as personal works-in-progress. Just as we would for process improvements, or development of a plan to improve quality, we must utilize the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle in our interactions as managers.

Take a few seconds to examine which assumptions, beliefs, etc., are in play at the given moment and decide whether these are the ones that you want to guide your behavior in the human interaction you are about to initiate or join. Change what needs to be changed to plan the interaction, proceed, check yourself to see if the interaction is providing the results that you had anticipated, and, if not, re-evaluate your assumptions and change what needs changing.

Purposeful management and leadership require diligence and practice. You cannot be purposeful by accident or through a casual attitude about what you are doing. With practice you can develop your “purposefulness” into a “second nature,” but it will take consistent application of the thoughtful process.

As managers, our behavior should purposefully encourage others into effective problem solving. The manager’s job is not to problem-solve, but rather, to lead others through the process. Purposeful managers provide inquiry and support to those around them. Their inquiry is grounded in possibility and the assumptions, beliefs, attitudes and values that have been identified as the driving forces for positive impact or effect within the organization.
The manager’s job is to ask the questions that will promote creative problem solving. This means identifying and asking the questions that will look for the best of what already exists and focus on relevant possibilities for the future.

Support from the manager comes in the form of facilitation that encourages the participatory decision making process. This facilitation should also encourage others’ focused inquiry to maximize the collaborative contribution of the group.

Purposeful management and leadership should be focused on making the specific interaction a positive experience for all involved. It should hold as its foundation the principles of inclusion, shared power and information, the enhancement of self-worth of others and it should be an energizing experience for all.

Being a purposeful manager and leader is a freeing experience. The old paradigm of the manager as a controller of situations and people has created organizations rife with micro-management, resentment, frustration, lack of trust, dishonesty and burned out managers. I am not the first to suggest that “control” for a manager is an illusion. It doesn’t exist. The illusion creates a false sense of security for the manager.

Purposeful management requires us to let go of the illusion and recognize that each individual controls him or herself. We can no more control others than we can the weather. Purposeful management requires us to acknowledge that we work with capable, conscientious, willing adults who want to contribute, and (borrowing from Dr. Ken Blanchard) who “…want to be magnificent.”

Andrew Coutermarsh has an MS in management from Antioch New England Graduate School where he is a member of the adjunct faculty teaching human resources development. He holds SPHR (Senior Professional Human Resources) designation from the Society of Human Resource Management, and is the director of human resources for Prime Resources Corp.