The Loneliness of Corporate Leadership Roles and the “Purpose” Mindset as an Opportunity

The Loneliness of Corporate Leadership Roles and the “Purpose” Mindset as an Opportunity

Last week I met with a friend who had been promoted six months ago to an important corporate role: Manager of Sustainability and Internal Communications. The reason for our conversation? She was looking for a job. In her words, corporate positions were lonely and fraught with political difficulties. Why did Alejandra feel this way?

The complexity of having both a functional and a matrix manager, along with the tension caused by poor business results stemming from recent slow economic growth, put interpersonal relationships at risk and can lead to a transactional dynamic based on mistrust, where each executive is more concerned with saving their own skin than with working toward the organization’s results.

The Corporate World Today

Working for a corporation has many advantages: from hygiene factors like salary, benefits, a spacious office, and always-hot coffee, to motivational factors, such as being part of a large team, having a boss and a human resources department that encourages your growth and development, or the opportunity to make a difference in many people’s lives through your work. All of these seem to be important factors when choosing this career path.

However, as people move up the organizational hierarchy, their initial motivational factors may fade. Corporate roles often have a matrix structure, with shared services for People (Human Resources), Technology, and Finance—and other areas may be added as well. This means that employees have both a functional manager and a matrix manager, requiring them to balance the demands of both, build trust with both, and achieve the objectives set by both. These roles are inherently challenging, especially when one of the managers is physically distant—at the corporate headquarters in another city or country.

Today, amid an unfavorable economic climate, organizational leaders are particularly vigilant about avoiding unnecessary expenses, optimizing production, and maximizing sales—which places a high level of stress on them and their subordinates. This sustained stress over the long term can boil over, leading to mutual recriminations, excessive demands on teams, and sometimes even mistreatment.

The effect on people’s mindset

Depending on the context, people have different ways of approaching work. One approach is to adopt a transactional mindset, where we contribute exactly what we receive in exchange for our work. We work for our paycheck at the end of the month, or according to the job description provided for our position. Thus, work is a means of supporting ourselves, but it is not a source of fulfillment.

One approach that has gained traction today—especially with generational shifts and what we at Almabrands call the “Era of Purpose”—is to work with a purpose-driven mindset; that is, to work toward the opportunity to apply my talents, skills, and, above all, my personal purpose at work. The increase in performance, ability to prioritize, and overall well-being among people who operate with this mindset has been widely documented; you can find more information about this in this article.

To cultivate this “Purpose” mindset at work, three dimensions must be developed: having meaningful relationships at work; being able to see the impact of one’s work on others; and having opportunities for growth and development. When this happens, work becomes not only a source of income but also a place where people can find fulfillment. When any one of these elements is lacking, it’s easy to fall back into the old transactional mindset.

How to Foster a Purpose-Driven Mindset in the Corporate World

To the extent that the corporate world can support these three dimensions in its employees, it will also be able to bring out the best in them. But if, as in Alejandra’s case, relationships become strained and she does not receive support in developing genuine bonds with her peers and/or supervisors; if the opportunities to make an impact through her work get bogged down in the bureaucracy inherent in a corporation; or if she doesn’t receive support in understanding her new role so that she can develop the skills needed to perform her job, then we will struggle to retain key people for when the economic situation improves or to identify today the opportunities that will materialize in the future.

I invite you to ask yourself these questions and assess how much you’re helping others navigate the corporate world:

To what extent are we supporting the development of meaningful relationships within our organizations?

To what extent are we supporting the development of meaningful relationships within our organizations?

To what extent do our employees feel that what they do has a direct impact on others, whether within or outside the organization?

To what extent do our employees feel that what they do has a direct impact on others, whether within or outside the organization?

To what extent are we supporting and challenging our people to step outside the comfort zone of their job descriptions?

To what extent are we supporting and challenging our people to step outside the comfort zone of their job descriptions?