Leaders who lead purposeful organizations are those who put people first. No, it's not a cliché when they actually do it. It means they set clear expectations, provide adequate resources, coach for success, and evaluate for results.

Leaders do not motivate per se. They create conditions for people to motivate themselves. They do it by communicating clearly, setting clear expectations, following through and recognizing performance.

Leadership is an active, living process. It is rooted in character, forged by experience, and communicated by example.

Three things a leader or manager should be thinking: What's happening? What's not happening? and What can I do to influence the outcome?

There are some terrific resources on how to find individual purpose but relative resources on how to discover purpose and apply to an organization. My challenge was to show organizations how they could unlock the purpose of their organizations and put it to good use for employees to apply to their own jobs. The net effect is to help individuals, teams and organizations to optimize performance by understanding how to use purpose for good intention.

Purposeful organizations develop the next generation, not simply the next leader. My friend Marshall Goldsmith, bestselling author and leading executive coach, does not like the term succession planning. Better to say, "succession development." That means you are focusing on multiple managers and grooming them to lead.

Leadership embraces activism; it is the outcome of a purposeful pursuit of goals.