TL:DR: You’ve got to lead and live the most compelling inspirational story to pierce through the constant stream of negative content that your teams live within.

Leading companies is hard. Leading people is what makes it tough.

How people think and feel about work is the problem. This has changed a lot in the last 5 years.

What you want for the company and what individuals within the team want for themselves - may not align.

Somehow, you've got to keep growing despite this tension. You’ve got to stay on top of the tough stuff.

You might feel like you’ve got no choice but to keep fighting. The alternative is decline and close down.

It’s this that causes burnout. The constant need to push, pull and coax people to get stuff done. Constant repetition, constant fire fighting. Did you know that 72% of executives feel emotionally exhausted by the end of each workday?

Results no longer easy to replicate

How we used to get results isn’t working as well anymore (e.g. reorgs and incentive models). Let’s face it, we’ve all grown tired of the constant cuts, crises and changes.

Your teams feel unsure about the future and it's burning them out. You might be feeling the same.

Experts might have told you that fixing culture and purpose will help . You’ve looked at these and found that nothing really sticks. It's either too hard, too wooly or both.

Purpose vs Performance

You know that purpose is important but it’s performance that’s got you here. Getting to the next level, you don’t want the team's performance to slip. You're looking for ways for the team to become more creative. You want new ideas so that performance and growth become easier. You want fewer fires to fight and more moments of enjoying the results.

Finding the headspace and time to bring better ideas to life might feel out of reach. Sustaining growth may feel overwhelming. Top performers may feel unsure that they can keep delivering results. Your team might be finding the work repetitive and mechanistic. This affects performance.

Sure, money is still an important motivator but since the pandemic, people want more balance. Most workplaces are not deeply fulfilling the needs and wants of their people. As a result only 23% of employees find their work engaging.

This adds to pressure you face in your fight to keep on growing. You want to do something different but aren’t sure of what.

Others facing the same challenges may have chosen technology. You may have tried this too and found that it's not helped. You know that there's a deeply human problem that needs a human solution. Teams are tired of technology changes.

Getting to Prosperous Purposeful Performance

Leading a purposeful company is important to you as long as it performs. Being purpose led makes your company more attractive to talent while improving employee wellbeing. For a purpose which resonates, people go the extra mile. As a

result creativity and innovation flow better.

The big challenge is getting the purpose to resonate with people. Your purpose must compete against an overcrowded headspace and deeply negative news backdrop. For your purpose to breakthrough, you've got to overcome engrained cynicism. The threshold to get people to care is higher than ever.

It's the content we consume that’s crowding out ideas for new and better coming to life. What we consume is for the most part negative (whether news, social media or other). The algorithms that stick us to, and, drive these platforms prioritize content which gets a strong response. Bad news does far better than neutral or good news at this. Our content habits have trained apathy and a sense of inaction into most of us. Getting teams to believe in and back a positive message is the fight that leaders face.

Looking for ways to overcome these hurdles you and your colleagues may be asking:

How might I inspire continued growth in a way that’s balanced so that our performance is purposeful?

Cultivate a culture of fierce, focused and fabled storytelling to pierce through the negativity and fuel higher performance in your team.

The story of what you’re creating has to cut through the bubble of collective negativity. A great story drives us to pick up and shed any negativity that may be weighing us down. This legendary epic is fuelled by creativity and courage. To do this you’ve got to architect and direct the living of a legendary epic.

1. Evolve your role to include legendary epic anthology director (LEAD)

Set your vision to audaciously big
Create the headroom for others to be inspired to replicate your entrepreneurial spark. In doing so you’ll inspire teams to break free from their habitual boundaries. Grit, perseverance and drive will all return so and you’ll return to outperforming and innovating.
Accept discomfort - Legendary epics are rarely easy or comfortable but the tales of struggle and overcoming crazy odds live on. This will protect performance and will keep the team on the lookout for threats.

If you live it long enough, it becomes the future. The future is the story that we constantly told ourselves. We’ve got to start telling and living it now.

2. Go Big on Purpose to breathe some soul back into work.

Be vivid and bring your purpose to life in detail
Balance performance with purpose and balance metrics with meaning
Be granular and clearly craft a space for the team’s story in a way that resonates with their purpose
Be clear on what’s driving the team beyond the numbers

By fostering a culture where balanced performance of measures and meaning is valued and celebrated, you’ll reignite the drive in your team, not just to perform but to innovate and grow.

3. Cut out the negative streams and celebrate wins

Find and minimize the source of negative noise in your team
Create the headspace for positivity and fill it with creativity and celebration
Plan for moments of reflection and address what comes from reflection

This will create a culture of optimism, where everyone believes that they can prevail and be recognised.. By doing so, you’ll help them see the possibilities in front of them rather than getting bogged down by challenges.

4. Find opportunities to align passion, talent and purpose

Empower people to see their role in the legendary epic over time (more compelling than a career route)
Invest in growth for all
Support people to reflect to discover their own purpose and hidden talents.

By aligning passion with purpose, you’ll unlock new levels of productivity and innovation that benefit both your team and your business.. When employees are encouraged to explore their interests and develop their skills, they bring more energy, creativity, and engagement to their work.

The Future Belongs to Those Who Can Consistently Keep Winning

So, here’s the big question: are you and your team working toward a set of priorities, or are you becoming the legends of tomorrow? What you’ve just stepped into is more than a new identity—it’s a new way of leading that will shape not only your business but the broader world of work. As a LEAD, it’s on you to bring to life your mission.

It is our mission to help you free you up to become legendary and lead other legends.

If you’re ready to lead a fierce and focused culture of writing a legendary epic anthology, we’re here to help you get started.

Share this article with other leaders who want to fight for a share of the future, and contact us here for a conversation about legendary epic workshops, director coaching programs, and purposeful performance programming.

Here’s the truth: The Best Story Wins.

Overcoming the biggest threat to team potential, performance and results.