“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
In Play 53, I argued that we need leadership for survival. But survival, essential as it is, cannot be the final purpose of leadership. Once we have answered the question “How do we survive?”, another, deeper question appears:
“What are we surviving for?”
That question takes us from survival to purpose — and from purpose to vision and belonging.
When I was first appointed CEO of the largest Romanian bank, I asked myself two questions:
Why am I here?
And almost immediately:
Why are we here?
The second question was harder.
I was no longer thinking only about myself. I was thinking about over 500 colleagues who came to work every morning, did their jobs, served clients, followed procedures, and carried their own responsibilities.
But an organization cannot live on procedures alone.
People need to understand what their work is for.
They need to know where they are going.
And they need to feel part of something worth belonging to.
That, I came to believe, is one of the fundamental reasons leadership exists.
Leadership helps people answer three questions:
Why are we here?
Where are we going?
And why should I want to make that journey with you?
Those are questions of purpose, vision, and belonging.
That was when I began to understand the intimate connection between leadership and purpose.
Purpose: Why Are We Here?
Purpose comes before strategy.
Strategy tells us what we intend to do. Purpose tells us why doing it matters.
Without purpose, people may still perform. They may meet targets, comply with instructions, and complete projects. But performance gradually becomes transactional.
Work becomes something exchanged for salary, status, or security.
A leader must therefore help people see beyond the task.
In a bank, for example, the purpose cannot simply be to make loans, gather deposits, or produce profits. Those are necessary activities and outcomes, but they do not fully explain why the institution exists.
A bank can help businesses grow, families acquire homes, entrepreneurs take risks, savings become investment, and an economy develop.
Once people see that larger connection, ordinary work acquires a different meaning.
Leadership does not manufacture purpose out of thin air.
It discovers it, articulates it, and constantly reminds people of it.
Vision: Where Are We Going?
Purpose explains why the journey matters.
Vision gives the journey direction.
When I assumed leadership responsibility, it was not enough to tell colleagues that their work was important. They also needed to know what kind of institution we wanted to become.
A vision creates a picture of a future that does not yet exist.
That is one of the unusual responsibilities of leadership: to make something invisible sufficiently credible that others are willing to work toward it.
A good vision is therefore neither a slogan nor a forecast.
It is a proposition.
It says:
This is what we might become if we work together.
Leaders cannot guarantee that future.
But they can make it imaginable.
And people rarely commit themselves deeply to a future they cannot imagine.
Belonging: Is There a Place for Me?
However, leaders sometimes underestimate a third question.
Even when people understand the purpose and believe in the vision, they may still wonder:
Do I belong in this story?
Belonging turns the organization into our organization.
It is what changes their strategy into our journey.
People need to understand that their contribution matters, others can hear their voice, and no one uses them merely as instruments to achieve someone else’s ambition.
This does not mean that everyone decides everything.
Leadership still requires judgment, responsibility, and hard choices.
But people must see the relationship between what they do and what the organization is trying to become.
They must be able to say:
There is a place for me here.
That sentence is far more powerful than many incentive schemes.
Leadership Connects the Three
Purpose, vision and belonging reinforce one another.
Purpose without vision may inspire, but it does not tell us where to go.
Vision without purpose may create movement, but people eventually ask why the destination matters.
Purpose and vision without belonging may produce compliance, but rarely deep commitment.
Leadership connects all three.
It gives meaning to effort.
It gives direction to ambition.
And it creates the human bond that makes collective achievement possible.
This is also why we cannot reduce leadership to authority.
A manager can allocate tasks.
A hierarchy can issue instructions.
A system can measure performance.
But none of those things alone can convincingly answer the question:
Why are we here?
That question requires interpretation.
It requires judgment.
It requires someone to connect the daily reality of work with a larger idea of what the organization is trying to accomplish.
The Question Never Disappears
I first asked myself these questions when I became CEO of the bank.
But I have discovered that they never really disappear.
Every organization must answer them repeatedly.
Why are we here now?
What has changed?
Does our original purpose still matter?
Does our vision still deserve commitment?
Do people still feel that they belong?
Leadership is therefore not the act of answering these questions once.
It is the responsibility of keeping them alive.
Because organizations drift.
Strategies become routine.
Success creates complacency.
Institutions can continue operating long after they have forgotten why they exist.
One of leadership’s most important duties is to prevent that forgetting.
Leadership as the Translator of Meaning
In many ways, leaders are translators. They take the abstract — our need for meaning, direction, and connection — and translate it into clear goals, strategies, and daily actions.
In doing so, they help individuals and teams move from uncertainty to clarity, from existing to belonging, from working to contributing.
When people ask, “Why are we here?”, leaders can respond not just with words but with a lived example of purpose, a visible vision, and a culture of belonging.
A Final Thought
People do not follow spreadsheets.
They do not belong to the targets.
And they rarely give their best merely because someone has authority over them.
They commit themselves when they understand why something matters, when they can see a future worth pursuing, and when they feel that they have a meaningful place in creating it.
That is why leadership is essential.
At its best, leadership helps a group of individuals become a collective.
It turns my work into our purpose.
It turns uncertainty into a direction.
And it gives people an answer to one of the most fundamental questions any organization can ask:
Why are we here?
Questions for Reflection
- If someone in your organization asked you today, “Why are we here?”, what would you say in one sentence?
- Is that purpose genuinely understood across the organization, or mainly expressed in formal statements and presentations?
- What difference would disappear from the world, your community, or your customers if your organization ceased to exist?
📚Further Reading
- Robert E. Quinn & Anjan V. Thakor — The Economics of Higher Purpose
Particularly relevant to your banking story because it examines how organizations can discover an authentic higher purpose and connect it with performance. - Daniel Coyle — The Culture Code
An excellent complement for the belonging part of the post: why successful groups create safety, connection and shared identity. - Edgar H. Schein & Peter A. Schein — Organizational Culture and Leadership
A more substantial book on how leaders create, reinforce, and sometimes have to change the shared assumptions that hold organizations together. - Ronald A. Heifetz — Leadership Without Easy Answers
Important because it takes leadership beyond authority. It fits particularly well with your line that leadership cannot be reduced to hierarchy or issuing instructions. - Amy C. Edmondson — The Fearless Organization
Adds an important dimension to belonging: people need sufficient psychological safety to speak, question, contribute and feel that their presence matters.
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