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In the final part of a three-part series, Kevin Ford joins Craig Dowden to unpack purpose, values, and what it actually takes to anchor a growing organization in something bigger than the quarterly number.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is purposeful leadership and why does it matter?
A: Purposeful leadership means anchoring a company around a clear statement of impact on customers and society, not financial targets alone. Ford argues it builds more employee passion, retention, and trust than performance-only leadership, without sacrificing growth or accountability.
Q: What is a purpose-driven organization?
A: A purpose-driven organization is one where the reason the company exists beyond profit shapes daily decisions, storytelling, and how leaders talk to staff, customers, and investors. Ford built Calian's purpose statement with staff input rather than dictating it from the top down.
Q: What is the difference between a purpose-driven and performance-driven culture?
Q: A performance-driven culture puts financial metrics first and treats values as negotiable under pressure. A purpose-driven culture holds values and purpose as fixed, and lets performance grow on top of that foundation rather than at its expense.
What Is Purposeful Leadership and Why It Matters
Kevin Ford, the former CEO of Calian Group who led the company through a decade of record growth, anchors the series in purpose and values, following earlier discussions on self-leadership and connecting with others through candor, respect, and empathy.
He built his framework inside a publicly traded company under constant pressure to hit financial targets, and he still argues purpose has to come first. Below, we walk through his definition of purpose, how Calian built its purpose statement, the difference between a purpose-driven organization and a performance-driven one, and what it takes to close the gap between values on a wall and values in practice.
What Is a Purpose-Driven Organization, According to Kevin Ford
Ford opens by drawing a clear line between purpose and mission, terms he says most leaders treat as synonyms. "The purpose statement is the statement that reflects your impact on your customers and society," he explains. That framing matters because it forces a company to answer why it exists beyond making money, and Ford says most leaders have never worked through a genuine answer to that question, even after years of running a business.
At Calian, the push for a purpose statement came from the company's HR team, not from Ford himself. He credits that team with pulling staff into the process directly, asking employees across finance, HR, and delivery teams to help shape the language rather than importing a statement from a branding exercise. The result, "help the world communicate, innovate, learn, lead safe and healthy lives," became something every employee could see themselves in, regardless of role. A person in finance could point to the innovative piece. A trainer working with military clients could lead safe and healthy lives. Ford admits he underestimated how powerful that single statement would become once the company started building a real dialogue around it, revisiting it periodically without ever landing on a better version.
A purpose-driven organization, in Ford's telling, treats that statement as a constant even as strategy and tactics shift year to year. "You can change strategy, you can change tactics, but generally your purpose is something that's much more longer lived," he says. That stability gives employees something to hold onto through reorganizations, acquisitions, or leadership changes, all of which Ford navigated repeatedly during his tenure as Calian grew into a global provider spanning defence, space, and healthcare work.
Purpose-Driven vs Performance-Driven Culture: Why the Order Matters
The purpose-driven vs performance-driven culture question comes down to what a company protects when growth targets and values pull in different directions. Ford is direct about where he lands. "I would rather be in a company that's rooted in purpose that can grow and do all the financial metrics versus one that's all financial metrics at the center and we're still trying to figure out what we do in the world," he says.
He connects this to a story from Craig Dowden about the CEO of Danby Appliances, who asked whether a company buys employees' hearts or just their time. Ford argues purpose is what buys hearts. Financial performance matters, and Ford never dismisses it. He spent a decade reporting quarterly results to public markets and knows the pressure that comes with that job. But he insists financial performance cannot be the only reason employees show up. Without a clear sense of impact, the only thing separating one job from another becomes the paycheck, and paychecks are easy for a competitor to beat.
Storytelling is the mechanism Ford leans on to keep purpose alive day to day, and he treats it as a skill leaders systematically underuse. As CEO, he had access to customer visits and impact data that most employees never see. During a trip to Latvia, he watched Calian's training programs support military personnel firsthand, an experience he calls one of the most impactful moments of his career. But he recognized that most staff never get that kind of exposure, so he made storytelling a deliberate leadership habit rather than a one-off gesture.
Ford's advice for building a purpose-driven organization comes down to a few practical moves that any leadership team can apply immediately.
- Treat every executive and manager as a chief storyteller, not just a title holder.
- Share specific stories of impact in town halls, staff communications, and investor conversations, not just annual reports.
- Tell employees they do not need to memorize the whole purpose statement. Finding one element they genuinely connect with is enough to carry real passion.
- Repeat these stories often instead of letting the purpose statement sit untouched after a single launch event.
- Extend the same storytelling habit to customers, partners, and shareholders, not just internal staff.
He also extends purpose beyond employees to shareholders and customers, noting that many of Calian's investors were proud to back a company with a defined purpose, not just a growth curve. That pride, in his experience, translated into steadier long-term support even during quarters when performance metrics dipped.
How to Close the Gap Between Stated Values and Lived Values
Values are how it feels to work at a company, buy from it, or partner with it. He has worked at companies where respect and commitment were printed everywhere, yet the daily experience did not match. "We said it, but we don't feel it," is the warning sign he tells leaders to watch for, and he considers it one of the clearest signals that a values program has become performative.
The clearest threat to values, in Ford's experience, is performance pressure. Compensation plans built purely around revenue, margin, or growth targets can quietly license people to treat values as optional. "Some people take that goal as a license," he says, describing employees who chase a number while leaving damage behind them, whether that shows up as disrespectful behavior toward colleagues or corner-cutting with customers. Ford's fix is direct. Pair every performance target with an explicit expectation that it gets hit without sacrificing values, and call out violations when they happen, even from top performers who are otherwise hard to replace.
Ford recommends two concrete practices for any leader worried about a values gap. First, ask staff directly through pulse surveys whether the company is actually living its stated values, broken out one value at a time rather than as a single blended score. Second, be ready for uncomfortable answers, because that discomfort is more useful than silence. A survey that only confirms what leadership already believes is not doing its job.
He also addresses what happens when an employee's personal values conflict with how the organization operates, a scenario he says is nearly universal in any company that grows past a few hundred people. In his experience, people look to leadership behavior for the real signal, not the values statement itself. If leaders walk the walk, misalignment gets surfaced and addressed early. If they do not, employees quietly conclude the values are just words, and that conclusion spreads faster than any internal memo can correct it.
Closing Thoughts on Purpose and Values
The through-line of this three-part series is sequence. Self-leadership comes first, connecting with others through candor, respect, and empathy comes second, and anchoring the work in purpose and values comes third. Ford closes by admitting none of this happens perfectly. "It's never a hundred percent perfect," he says, pointing to positive energy as the one variable every leader fully controls, regardless of what the market, the calendar, or the news cycle throws at them.
For any leader asking what is purposeful leadership and why it matters, Ford's answer is less about slogans and more about discipline. Define the impact you want to have, build it with your people instead of for them, then check constantly whether your daily behavior still matches what you claim to stand for. That discipline, repeated for years rather than performed for a quarter, is what separates companies that talk about purpose from companies that are actually built on it.
- To get practical tools and actionable tips that will jumpstart your journey, download the Kick Starter Booklet here.
- Join the newsletter to be notified when a new episode is ready for you to listen and get every Kick Starter Booklet for all future episodes.
- And if you’re looking to elevate your entire C-Suite leadership team, learn how Craig Dowden can help your leaders perform at their highest-level visit https://www.craigdowden.com/executive-mastermind
- For a deeper dive, listen to the full-length episode of the Do Good to Lead Well podcast featuring Kevin Ford:
Check out these articles to help hone your skills even further:
- Part 2, Respect, Empathy, and Connecting With Others: What Does Respect Mean at Work? Kevin Ford on Respect, Empathy, and Connecting With Others
- Part 1, Build a 360° Feedback Process: Part 1: Self-Awareness in Leadership — How Top CEOs Build a 360° Feedback Process That Works, Featuring Kevin Ford, Former CEO of Calian Group
- Sabbatical Leave: The Benefits of Sabbatical Leave: What DJ DiDonna's Research Actually Shows
- Difficult Conversations: How to Have a Difficult Conversation Without Repeating It Next Month
- Getting Honest Feedback: Why Senior Leaders Stop Getting Honest Feedback (And What to Do About It) with Craig Dowden
- Actually Get Results: How to Be Yourself at Work and Actually Get Results: Lessons from Claude Silver, Chief Heart Officer at VaynerX
- Stop Being Overlooked: How to Build Unforgettable Presence: Proven Strategies for Introverts, Leaders, and Anyone Who Wants to Stop Being Overlooked with Lorraine K. Lee
- Stop Playing It Safe: How to Stop Playing It Safe and Lead at Your Full Potential: Insights from Dianna Fioravanti
- Lead with Authentic Integrity: How to Lead with Authentic Integrity: Lessons from a Financial Markets CEO with Laura Paglia
- Ethical Leadership: The Integrity Gap: How Good People Make Bad Decisions (And How to Prevent It) with Tom Hardin
- Creating Inclusive Workplaces: Beyond DEI: The Practical Fairness Framework for Creating Inclusive Workplaces That Actually Work with Lily Zheng
- Psychological Safety and Belonging: Building Emotionally Intelligent Teams: The Science-Backed Framework for Psychological Safety and Belonging with Vanessa Druskat
- Make Better Decisions: How to Make Better Decisions When Everything Feels Uncertain
- Anxiety: Mastering Social Anxiety: Evidence-Based Strategies for Leaders and Professionals
Craig Dowden
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