More than Profit

What counts as a ‘worthy’ goal is a matter of judgement. It may have to do with the product that a business produces, or it may have to do with how the business operates. Either way, a worthy goal should be about more than money, it must be more than ‘to increase profitability’ or ‘maximize shareholder value’.

Google’s mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” This is the goal the business seeks to achieve, but it has nothing to do with finance or revenue. Barry Wehmiller, is a traditional manufacturing company, making industrial machinery. However, painted on the company’s office wall is the phrase: ‘we measure our success by the way we touch the lives of others.’ The product that the business produces is somewhat prosaic, but the way the company seeks to operate is with people at the center: a worthy goal in the how of business.

Note that a leader is not just someone who has a worthy goal. There are many people who devote themselves to worthy goals, sometimes at great personal cost to themselves, but this does not make them leaders. A leader is someone who influences and guides others to work towards a worthy goal.

Alex Honnold is a ‘Free Solo’ climber, who makes ascents alone and without the aid of safety equipment. He made it his goal to be the first person to free solo the 2,900ft rockface El Capitan. He trained for years, living out of a van, despite having an income equivalent to ‘a pretty good dentist.’¹ He conquered the ascent of El Capitan in 2017, a feat described in the New York Times as ‘one of the great athletic feats of any kind, ever.’² He pursued a worthy goal with great dedication, but he was not a leader. He wasn’t trying to inspire others join him in this goal – the point of a free solo climb is that you do it alone! Honnold is a pioneer who achieved something very inspiring, but he is not a ‘leader’ in sense that we are talking about.

In contrast, President John F. Kennedy proclaimed in 1962 the intention of the United States to send a man [sic] to the moon and to bring him back safely before the end of the decade. Many people felt that this was an unachievable goal, but the USA poured resources and effort into accomplishing it, and it was realized in July 1969, with the successful Apollo 11 mission. By this time, Kennedy had sadly been assassinated, but the first human landing on the moon occurred because of his inspiring leadership.

The goals that a leader works towards can be large or small, affecting millions of lives or just a few people. But if a leader is truly to lead, then they must be able to communicate the goodness of the goal to others – they must be able to inspire people to put effort towards that goal. Leaders are more than activists – they mobilize the efforts of a whole community to work together to achieve something meaningful.

We will look now at some of the ways in which leaders can do this.

References

Dan Barkin (2006). “He made the iPod: How Steve Jobs of Apple created the new millennium’s signature invention.” Knight Ridder Tribune Business News, December 3, 2006, p. 1.

[1] Vasarhelyi, E. C., & Chin, J. (2018). Free Solo. National Geographic Documentary Films.
[2] Duane, Daniel (June 9, 2017). “Opinion: El Capitan, My El Capitan”. The New York Times. Retrieved September 22, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/09/opinion/el-capitan-my-el-capitan.html