You know you want to pursue more than financial goals when…
There comes a point in your career when you realise financial success alone isn’t going to satisfy. As an entrepreneur or CEO, this can create a dilemma: you’re at the top of the organisation and now you realise you want to be playing a different game!
In this article, I’m going to share five ways leaders get stuck chasing purely financial objectives, despite their desire to have a broader impact - as well as how you can go about overcoming those challenges.
First, are you ready to pursue more deeply significant impact goals? Well, here are three signs you might be ready to level-up and pursue a new level of impact:
1. You’re feeling an emptiness: Solely chasing profitability and business growth can leave CEOs with a nagging feeling of emptiness, despite all their achievements. The relentless pursuit of profit often lacks the emotional fulfilment that comes with making a positive impact.
I’ve seen this first hand in Season 13 of The Impact Multiplier CEO Podcast, where CEO after CEO has recounted their story of realising that they weren’t positively changing lives in any material way, despite all their business success.
2. Your relationships are strained: The high-pressure environment that comes with a singular focus on profits can strain personal relationships, both within and outside the organisation. You might find it challenging to maintain meaningful connections, exacerbating feelings of loneliness.
3. You’re losing motivation: Over time, the constant drive for profit and lack of deeper purpose can lead to a decline in motivation, both for you as CEO and the wider team. Without a more profound "why," it becomes harder to inspire and mobilise teams, especially during challenging times.
But you’re not shifting to an impact agenda because…
However, feeling an inner urge to pursue impact is NOT the same as taking action! When you’re a successful CEO, there can be many factors that can keep you encaged by the status-quo, and leave you with a sense that it’s perhaps better not to rock the boat.
Here are five reasons you might not be taking the action towards greater impact that you deeply want:
1. You’re pleasing, not leading
As a CEO, you might face pushback from stakeholders (both investors and employees) who are primarily interested in short-term profits and less in long-term, purpose-driven strategies. The pressure to deliver immediate results can overshadow the long-term benefits of a shift towards significance.
The solution: Make this a personal leadership and influence challenge. If you believe in the power of impact, educate, inspire and persuade your stakeholders. Don’t accept the status quo, and don’t believe opinions cannot be shifted. Stop pleasing people and start leading the change.
2. You’re measuring wrong
Society often measures success in terms of wealth and power. And, even more perniciously, perhaps the only thing YOU’VE been measuring are financial metrics: company performance and/or personal wealth generation, for example. After all, these financial metrics are easily accessible and understandable. But if that’s what you’re measuring, that’s where you’ll focus.
The solution: Get clear on your personal success metrics. If you’re only measuring quarterly profitability, your actions will follow. What are the impact metrics that really matter to you, and what are the “lead indicators” that can act as a compass to show you that you’re on track? For example, I have a successful day if I’ve created something great, or if I’ve served somebody powerfully.
3. You’re surrounded by the wrong people
Like many CEOs, you’ve probably spent your career in environments that value relentless ambition and financial gain. And many of the people around you are probably still on that path. It’s hard to step up to a new level, play a bigger game, if you’re surrounded by people still operating at the lower level. You’ll simply be pulled back to the norms around you.
The solution: Surround yourself with people who are financially successful AND making a huge impact in the world. At our Rivendell CEO Community retreat last month, one person came along quite lethargic about their business interests - and was blown away by the passion and dynamism of the other participants, each of whom are pursuing a huge and inspiring mission. Just being around these purpose-driven people caused this individual to rethink the impact he truly wanted to make
4. You’re waiting for the perfect day
It can be difficult to balance the need for profitability with the desire to make a significant impact. As a CEO, you may worry about the potential risk to financial stability of focusing your time and attention on broader questions of impact, and decide to postpone taking action for a quarter. And then another quarter.
This is what I call the “perfect day syndrome”. We wait for the perfect day, but it never comes. And so the days, the quarters and the years path, and we miss the real and present opportunities to multiply our impact beyond the financials.
The solution: Create an ‘inciting event’. An inciting event is the moment in a story where the hero is forced off the couch to begin a new adventure. It’s when Frodo finds he has to flee the Hobbit Hole; where Luke Skywalker realises he can no longer stay on Tatooine. Create your own inciting event by making a declaration, putting some skin in the game, or signing up to something that forces you to move forward.
5. You’re not quite sure you have what it takes
Chances are you’re used to being a successful high-performer, and people see you as, largely, having it together and being a safe pair of hands.
However, the path to significance is less clear-cut than the path to traditional business success. It can be scary to take the less-traveled path, especially when the stakes are high.
Given this, it can be daunting to pursue a “100X impact” agenda, because it’s new ground, and you’re not quite sure you can pull it off. If your performance dips, or you don’t deliver - what would that mean to your self-esteem?
The solution: Find a mission that’s so deeply important that you become unstoppable. Find something so inspiring that you’re prepared to face the fear and do it anyway.
What’s your top strategy for pursuing an impact agenda?
Let’s face it, the pull of chasing one-dimensional financial results is strong for many of us. So, let me wrap up with two questions I’d love to know your answers to:
