Here’s a shift many leaders are wrestling with: 👉Meaning has become a performance issue. People used to ask, “Do I believe in what this company is trying to accomplish?”

But today, people are asking a different set of more personal questions:
🔹Is my work meaningful?
🔹Am I becoming the kind of person I want to become?
🔹Am I growing—not just professionally, but personally?

Under pressure for results, it’s easy for leaders to view this quest for personal meaning as an unnecessary distraction. But ignoring those conversations doesn’t create greater focus. It often creates disengagement. The leaders I see creating the strongest teams don’t lower performance expectations.

They ask better questions:
👉“What’s important to you and how can we make your work even more meaningful?”
👉”What part of your work gives you energy?”
👉”Where do you feel you’re making your greatest contribution?”
👉”How can we create more opportunities for you to use your strengths?”

When people can see how achieving the organization’s goals also advances something meaningful to them, engagement stops being another initiative. It becomes a natural outcome of how they experience their work.