The Power of Purpose and Priorities

Leading the Way

Leon Drennan

• Publisher: Vision Leadership Foundation
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9780990403395
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

Do you feel like you’re working harder than ever but not getting anywhere personally or professionally? If so, author Leon Drennan can help. In The Power of Purpose and Priorities, he explains how to reassess your mission, values, and purpose in order to gain focus in your activities and develop priorities. Drennan says “less is more” when it comes to scheduling in business, family life, and social engagements. Wise people learn to prune away all nonessen­tial activities in their personal lives and organizations to optimize the use of resources.

The most important priorities in life are spiritual, Drennan writes. That’s why it’s essential for believers to apply the principles of Scripture and learn to follow God’s personal guidance.

Specific applications of the principles in The Power of Purpose and Priori­ties are made for individuals and organizations, with emphasis on leaders and their role in organizational development.

“You have to be clear about your purpose before you can set meaningful pri­orities for how you spend your time in this life, ” Drennan writes. “But more importantly, you have to be clear about your purpose and committed to it to have the endurance to see your priorities through. When you combine a clear understanding of your purpose with a few focused priorities, your life will have much greater impact.”

Part I

Purpose

“For you have been called for this purpose...”

1 Peter 2:21

“Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in your book were written all the days that were dreamed for me, when is yet there was not one of them.”

Psalm 139:16

Notes

Chapter 1

PURPOSE

“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

Proverbs 29:18 (KJV)

Everyone has his own vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus everyone’s task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it. ¹

– Victor E. Frankl

Dad

I saw the importance of purpose first in my dad’s life. I was just a kid the first time I ever saw Daddy cry. Dad was a dairy farmer. He was emotionally and physically tough. I had seen him cut himself with a chainsaw and only flinch. I had seen the flesh on his hand gape open to the bone. But I had never seen him cry. One day he slipped and broke his foot. He couldn’t go to the barn and milk his cows for about two weeks. I’ll never forget seeing him sitting on the couch crying. It wasn’t the pain of the broken foot. As he sobbed he said, “I’m just no good for anything.”

Of course that wasn’t true. He was a dad, a husband, and fulfilled many roles in life other than farming. But, like most people, he linked much of his self-worth and purpose to his work. When he couldn’t work, he did not feel he was achieving his purpose. Dad made the same mistake that I and many others make. He associated his identity and value more with the work he did than anything else.

Life on the farm

I didn’t like being out in the cold in the winter. But there were many things I did like about growing up on a farm. I could look behind the tractor after I plowed a field and see what I had accomplished. I could look at the milk can and see the milk after I milked the cow. I could see a full barn after I hauled hay all day.

I knew the purpose of plowing the field, milking the cow, and hauling the hay. And I felt a connection to that purpose and a sense of accomplishment. I felt like what I did counted—that I mattered that day.

Contrast that to work in organizational life. It’s so easy to work a day or even a week and often feel like you’re further behind than when you started. That zaps a person’s energy and zeal for the job. That’s because people need to feel like they’re contributing to some purpose that matters. If we cannot see how we contribute, we don’t feel like we matter. To be optimistic and highly productive, people need a clear vision of a better future and how they impact it meaningfully.

Working in an effective organization is like time on the farm. At the end of the day, week, or year, you accomplish something, know the purpose for it, and feel a strong connection to that purpose. When the individual’s purpose is aligned with the organization’s purpose, there is very high morale and low turnover. Working in a weak organization feels the opposite—no feeling of accomplishment, purpose, or connection to what matters.

Professional Life

“I want to make a difference.” That’s the desire I’ve heard expressed most frequently in thirty-five years of my professional career. There are many ways people say it, but it all means the same thing. They want to matter— to have meaning and purpose. They say it in organizational meetings, in annual reviews, and in everyday life in the hallways. I’ve literally heard it hundreds of times.

Purpose is to people’s souls like oxygen is to their lungs.

Mark and Janine

I saw Mark a few months ago. He was really tired. After he told me about his schedule, I understood why. He was putting in a lot of hours and hard work. I was curious as to why he didn’t do something else. He was very qualified and can make a good living with other companies without the long hours and intense schedules. I asked him why he was doing this and learned he was setting the pace and putting the expectations on himself. The company wasn’t demanding long hours. The reason he was working so hard was because he saw a window of opportunity to really make a difference in the lives of people through his project. He believed it would improve the quality of health care for patients and make a difference for the company. When the discussion was over, it all boiled down to one thing. He genuinely wanted to make a difference.

I’m also reminded of Janine. She’s not a high-level executive in a health care company like Mark. She is a lower-level employee with a company that helps dry out buildings after floods or any kind of water damage. She came to my house on the Saturday following the great flood of Nashville in May 2010 when she was supposed to have the day off. She had worked two weeks without taking even a day off. I had some flooding in the basement, and she remembered something that she wanted to check. She came to my house not for the money, not to further a career, and not for the recognition. She came because she cared about people and their lives and wanted to make a difference. And sure enough, she found an area of mold, which had been overlooked. She did make a difference!

Retirement

I remember vividly how I felt the first year after I retired from HCA in 2010. I created my nonprofit foundation—Vision Leadership. I thought I would immediately be busy training and coaching leaders. Yet I did almost nothing in this area for the first year. I was confused and frustrated. I did not understand God’s purpose in that first year. It was for rest and reflection and to think deeply about what I really believed and understood about leadership. It let me clear my head and prepared me to write my first book, Good King/Bad King.

During my confusion, I had no feeling of meaning or purpose. I was absolutely miserable during this season. An existence where you don’t think you matter is a small taste of Hell. I now understood why my dad cried when he couldn’t milk the cows. I could also relate to my friend who retired from being the CEO of a large company. I asked him if he was enjoying retirement. His words were, “it doesn’t feel good to feel irrelevant.”

We all need to feel like we matter. As I do executive coaching with organizations and meet the frontline people, their most frequent and significant complaint is that the leadership doesn’t make them feel valued. Everyone needs to feel they matter and know why.

Where does this need for purpose come from?

There are numerous articles available on the subject, and the issue is raised in some secular seminars. None of these secular sources, however, deal with where the need comes from and why it exists. The best answers are in the Bible. Chuck Swindoll says it well in Living the Psalms: “All of us need to be needed. We want to be wanted. God created us with the desire to know we can contribute something valuable and have a significant impact on the lives of others. In years past, great men and women wanted to leave their mark on the world, to create a legacy that would continue after they passed away.”²

Your unique purpose

“God has a purpose for each life he creates, and the purpose is as unique as the individual’s fingerprint.” Unfortunately “some people seem to drift aimlessly through life, with no specific direction.”³ Scripture says:

“Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in your book were written all the days that were dreamed for me, when as yet there was not one of them.”

Psalm 139:16

“For you have been called for this purpose...”

1 Peter 2:21

God had a plan for your life before He ever created anything. His plan for you is a good plan (Jeremiah 29:11). It’s a unique plan, created especially for you. Nobody else ever has been or e...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part I Purpose
• Part II Priorities
• Endnotes