Last week I wrote that No Trust = Poor Decisions, a topic that has led me to ask “Can you have trust without purpose?”

Without a clear sense of purpose, your team is asking “Why am I here?”. “What is it all for?”. The Vision and Mission statements in your strategic plan aren’t enough to give your team guidance, as you and I know that they rarely look at it after it’s published. The reality is it takes effort to make sure your team knows and understands its purpose.

Clear purpose is vital for decision making, giving your team direction, and acting as the North Star when things get complicated. And complications will come, they’re inevitable.

Let’s now ponder the relationship between trust and purpose. Is one more important than the other? You certainly can’t expect the team to fulfil their purpose if they don’t trust you as their leader. That is a given.

But is trust enough?

Not if the purpose your team is given doesn’t make sense to them. This disconnect might stem from a misalignment with their personal values – but that’s not the focus of this blog. What matters here is that the purpose must make sense within the broader organisational context. From my vast personal experience, a team that operates out of sync with the organisation’s direction is unlikely to succeed. Likewise, if the organisation’s purpose doesn’t align with how staff perceive the world around them, it creates a disconnect that can be just as damaging.

Take some time to consider purpose from your team’s and organisation’s context. Then look at the broader context, the world in which your organisation operates. And lastly, make sure everyone is aligned to a purpose that makes sense.

Too often, organisations, or teams within them, are simply confused about the why of their endeavours and when it gets complicated, well, things fall apart fast.