Mission and Leadership

In the previous post I wrote about values and their importance for the organisation. Another, essential element for the organisation is its mission. Every organisation has its mission and some organisations have defined, communicated and understood it clearly. When mission is clear for every member of the organisation, it helps leaders’ work. The mission is the organisation’s basic function which delivers the value to its stakeholders or customers.

What to do if organisation’s mission is not clear?

If the mission is not clear to the organisation people start to questioning every task they do. “Why are we doing this? This is just purposeless job to do? I don’t know? I don’t care. Someone else will do this, not me.” These are symptoms of missionless organisation. People don’t understand the connection of their task to the organisation’s basic function. In this case, it is leader’s job to clarify the mission and find the answer for the question: “Why this organisation exists?”. It is easy to start and the mission is easy to find. When mission is clear then it should be communicated clearly and kept in mind all the time by all the people.

Leader’s own mission

Like own values, it is good for the leader to understand own mission when executing basic function in different roles. The leader should have own mission for individual (self), father or mother, community member and for the leader. When the basic principles are clear for the leader it helps in leading others. When leader knows his or her mission as a leader it will help in developing others and organisations to grow.

For the leaders own sake it is important to have balance in life and that is why mission as a father or mother is something that can’t be forgotten. For me it is important to know what is my mission as a father and how am I able to cope with demanding work and without exhausting myself and neglecting my family.

Have you ever thought about your own mission as a leader or thought about the mission of the organisation where you work at? Think about what is the basic or principle function in your organisation which brings the most of its value.