The Leadership Team's Purpose Workshop

This one-hour workshop is to help leadership teams describe their purpose through the lens of enabling the organisation and what people who engage with or are affected by it need from them.

It invites people in the leadership team to think about the decisions, direction, interactions, inspiration and support that others need from them. 

They might consider staff members, different parts of the organisation, collaborators and external stakeholders. It then creates the space for the team to consider how they can better meet those needs, together.

When should you use this?

You should use this when starting a new leadership team, resetting a team, or reviewing whether you are meeting the organisation’s needs.

Who should be involved?

Invite everyone on your leadership team. Depending on how psychologically safe the team feels, it may also help to invite some trusted people who regularly interact with it.

I’d suggest doing it face-to-face if you can, even if you are using a Miro board, as these conversations are crucial for building connections between team members.

The Workshop Agenda

1. Name your team and the members.

2. [Using the 1-2-(4)-all liberating structures format] Everyone writes user needs cards on their own. Those cards have the structure as a <user type.> I need <what they need> from the leadership team.

3. People pair up and merge their cards to create a unified list

4. As a whole group, everyone shares their cards to create a new unified list

5. Affinity sort and theme the cards

6. Taking those themes, everyone votes on whether they think those things happen, don’t happen, or sometimes happen; this will show you opportunities.

7. Prioritise and agree on the next steps

What happens next

You have options now. You could:

• Create a prioritised list of areas to address, either together now or after you have iterated the list.

• Highlight any you don’t know how to do and think about who can help

• review your decision-making forums against the list.

• Use the list to review your team’s membership. Do you have the right people in place to meet those needs?

• Share it with people across your organisation, especially your users

Usage of this board


This board was created by Emily Webber and is licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0

You can edit and use this board according to the license, but always credit it Emily Webber.