Episode 99 - How to Create Meaningful Work

<h2 data-pm-slice="0 0 []"><strong>Summary</strong></h2> <p class="">Motivational speakers encourage us to find our purpose in life - our why. But leaders are better off focusing on creating meaningful work.</p> <p class="" data-rte-preserve-empty="true"> </p> <h2><strong>Transcript</strong></h2> <p class="">Hello and welcome to episode 99 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how to create meaningful work.</p> <p class="">Motivational speakers often encourage us to find our purpose in life - our why. If we know why we do what we do, then the things we do become more important and meaningful. </p> <p class="">Thankfully, as leaders, we don’t need to help our people to uncover their purpose in life. We do, however, have a significant role to play in creating meaningful work. While meaningful work isn’t quite the same as a life purpose, it is still a significant part of a meaningful life for many.</p> <p class="">Reseach which I’ve included in the show notes demonstrates that meaningful work links strongly to work engagement, commitment and job satisfaction. In addition there are weaker links to life satisfaction, life meaning, general health and intentions to stay at a workplace.</p> <p class="">If I provide meaningful work, I’m providing significance. There’s an appreciation that the work really matters.</p> <p class="">Now, clearly, there are some parts of our work that aren’t wrapped up in deeper meaning. Thankfully research shows that our sense of meaning in work is made up of the various episodes and elements of our work. As humans, we effectively weigh up the various parts to determine, on balance, whether our work has meaning. In fact, the overall sense of meaning makes the meaningless activities tolerable. I will put up with the meaningless parts of my work if the meaning bank account balance is in credit.</p> <p class="">To build meaning we can help our people to answer these questions about their work: Why does it matter? What d