Task Without Purpose Is Just Noise

Why leaders owe people more than orders

“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

One of the first leadership lessons I learned as a young lieutenant in the U.S. Army, way too many moons ago, was how to write a mission statement, which has two essential components: the task and the purpose. The task answers the question what are we going to do?—attack, defend, conduct a movement to contact, etc. The purpose addresses the far more important question—why are we doing it? Secure a key road junction. Destroy enemy outposts to provide freedom of maneuver for another unit. Protect civilians. I remember writing my first mission statement during a field exercise as a wet-behind-the-ears second lieutenant. It was clumsy and far too long. My company commander took a red pen to it, crossed out half the words, and asked me a simple question: “What’s the purpose?” Then he told me to try again and write it so my soldiers understood that.

Here’s the deal: If you can’t explain in understandable terms what you’re directing others to do, then good luck getting people to commit to its execution. Good leaders explain the why because it builds trust, commitment, and generates initiative. Close on the heels of the mission statement is the commander’s intent—a clear articulation of what success looks like and why the mission matters. In other words, when all is said and done, here is what must be accomplished. Soldiers, civilians, whoever, will execute a task when ordered to because they must. They commit themselves fully when they understand the purpose. And, critically, when people understand the why and the overarching intent, they are far more capable of adapting when circumstances inevitably change.

Which is why watching this administration struggle to coherently explain the purpose behind the war with Iran has been so alarming. One official suggests the goal is deterrence. Another says regime change. Someone else describes the strikes as limited actions not intended to escalate the conflict. Others yet state it is to destroy imminent Iranian nuclear weapon capability, supposedly obliterated eight months ago. Meanwhile bombs are dropped, ships are sunk, and leaders are killed—acts of war, not of “major combat operations” or “conflict” or any other useless euphemism. When explanations shift from day to day, official to official, the obvious question arises: what exactly is the purpose? Why are we doing this?

Confusion matters when a nation commits itself to war. Service members are placed in harm’s way. American citizens working or traveling in the region suddenly find themselves at risk, some locked in bomb shelters or stranded at shut down airports. Taxpayers are spending enormous sums to prosecute the war, in our case approximately $1 billion a day. Sadly, though, we’re all over the place when trying to determine just why we’re doing this. In the Army, a commander who could not clearly explain the purpose of a mission would quickly lose credibility with the soldiers expected to carry it out. The same principle should apply when national leaders commit the country to war.

In my book Large and In Charge No More—A Journey to Vulnerable Leadership, I argue that vulnerability in leadership means being willing to slow down, listen, and explain your reasoning. Explaining the why forces leaders to clarify their own thinking and exposes their logic to scrutiny. That can feel uncomfortable—but that discomfort is precisely what produces better decisions. When leaders avoid explaining the why or when in doing so a garbled mess results, it often signals that they either have not done the hard thinking or are unwilling to defend their reasoning.

Explaining the why is not a courtesy—it is a responsibility.