When employees are disengaged and underperforming, the reaction of many managers is to try new incentives and ratchet up oversight and control. Yet often nothing improves. Why? Because the assumption behind such conventional approaches is that work is fundamentally contractual and that employees are self-interested agents who will seek to minimize personal effort. And that assumption becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: Employees do just what is needed to earn a reward or meet a standard, and nothing more. But there is another way: Rally the organization behind an authentic higher purpose--an aspirational mission that explains how employees are making a difference and gives them a sense of meaning. If you do that, they will try new things, move into deep learning, and make surprising contributions. The workforce will become energized and committed, and performance will climb. In this article, Quinn and Thakor describe how organizations like DTE Energy, KPMG, and Sandler O'Neill have dramatically increased employee engagement after discovering their higher purposes. The authors outline eight steps other companies can follow to break free of the conventional thinking about worker motivation, help a higher purpose permeate decisions throughout the company, and set off a positive chain of events.

When we do our best work as leaders, we don't imitate others. Rather, we draw on our own values and capabilities. We enter what author Robert Quinn calls the fundamental state of leadership. This is a frame of mind we tend to adopt when facing a significant challenge: a promotion opportunity, the risk of professional failure, a serious illness, a divorce, the death of a loved one, or any other major life jolt. Crisis calls, and we rise to the occasion. But we don't need to spend time in the dark night of the soul to reach this fundamental state. We can make the shift at any time by asking ourselves--and honestly answering--four transformative questions: Am I results centered? (Am I willing to leave my comfort zone to make things happen?) Am I internally directed? (Am I behaving according to my values rather than bending to social or political pressures?) Am I other focused? (Am I putting the collective good above my own needs?) Am I externally open? (Am I receptive to outside stimuli that may signal the need for change?) When we can answer these questions in the affirmative, we're prepared to lead in the truest sense. Of course, we can't sustain the fundamental state of leadership indefinitely. Fatigue and external resistance pull us out of it. But each time we reach it, we then return to our everyday selves a bit more capable, and we usually boost the performance of the people around us. Over time, we create a high-performance culture--and one that can be sustained.