The Leadership Gift is much more than a set of techniques. It’s a way of being that extends way past the task of getting smart people to work together.

People who apply the Leadership Gift have developed a heightened appreciation for productive relationships as a means for advancing their own purpose in life (and at work).

Many wise teachers throughout history have celebrated the virtues of discovering and/or choosing a reason for being — a never-ending life purpose.

Career counselors say that discovering one’s purpose helps a person find their best work and greatest success. Business experts say that to thrive, a business must have a purpose well beyond making money.

So, what does purpose have to do with The Leadership Gift?

First, the clarity of direction that comes from being “on” purpose — be it inventing new technology, developing leaders, serving the sick, or leading people through the rapids of change — is highly empowering.

Following our intuition actually becomes more powerful. Needed people, things, and information appear miraculously when we’re “on” purpose.

Second, when we live and work with the conscious intention that accompanies purpose, we magnetize ourselves to attract three types of people:

1. people who can help us learn what we need to learn
2. people who can help us achieve our purpose (since our purposes are almost always larger than we can achieve by ourselves in our time)
3. people who will be served by our purpose

People who live on purpose develop their collaborative abilities to gain these benefits. They are folks with a job to do that is bigger — often much, much bigger — than they are.

If you don’t have this sense of purpose in your life or work, I invite you to take a moment to imagine how it would feel to know with certainty that there is always a need for you and your unique abilities in this world. It’s true.

Get Started With This Week’s 5-Minute Leadership Gift Stretch

To discover or choose your purpose in life and work, reflect on these questions. Then begin to design your life and work to support your answers:

1. If you were to inherit $1,000,000/month, tax free, for the rest of your life but only if you still worked 40 hours a week providing something of value to the world in order to get the money, what would you do?
2. When you look around at the world you live in, what do you see that needs doing that no one else sees, and that you are singularly qualified to do?
3. What application of your intelligence, passion, and abilities spontaneously excites you?

I hope these three questions help to clarify your purpose and free you to pursue what you are meant to do.

Do you have questions or insights? As always, I encourage you to share your thoughts about this post below in the comments.

Christopher Avery, PhD, is a recognized authority on how individual and shared responsibility works in the mind and an advisor to leaders worldwide. For more on topics discussed in this post, consider his executive report Responsible Change, and download the Responsibility Process™ poster PDF in a more than a dozen languages. CEO’s desiring a culture of ownership may want to investigate the proven Managed Leadership Gift Adoption program.