262. Unpacking Leadership: Unlocking Purpose, Ownership, and Mastery with Mick Spiers

What drives people to perform at their highest level? Contrary to popular belief, it's rarely money or status.

During this thought-provoking solo episode, I reflect on my transformative conversation with Dan Johnson, who built a non-profit organization with over 10,000 dedicated volunteers. His powerful insight? When you lead with genuine humility and humanity, people will walk through fire for you.

At the heart of true motivation lie three fundamental pillars: purpose, ownership, and mastery. Purpose goes beyond lofty organizational visions to connect daily tasks with meaningful outcomes. Ownership transforms people from passive task-completers into active co-creators who drive results. Mastery addresses our innate desire for growth and skill development in areas that matter.

Yet beneath these pillars runs something even more profound – our deeply human need to feel seen, heard, valued, and connected to something larger than ourselves. As leaders, we have the privilege of satisfying these needs through simple but powerful daily actions: giving the gift of purpose through context and meaning, presence through undivided attention, trust through empowerment, and growth through development opportunities.

This approach aligns perfectly with established psychological frameworks like William Glasser's Choice Theory and Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, confirming that true leadership isn't about control but connection. When we prioritize people before processes, purpose before policies, and meaning before metrics, we don't just get good work – we inspire extraordinary performance.

What gift will you give your people today? Subscribe to the Leadership Project on YouTube and follow us on social media as we continue our journey to learn together and lead together.

Chapters

• 0:00 Motivation Beyond Money
• 1:23 Three Pillars: Purpose, Ownership, Mastery
• 5:00 What People Deeply Crave
• 8:05 Five Fundamental Human Needs
• 12:05 Leadership Call to Action

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:01

You know, it's easy to assume that people are inspired by money, status or job titles, but what if I told you that some of the most committed, dedicated and passionate people I've ever seen weren't being paid at all? That was one of the most profound takeaways from my recent interview with Dan Johnson, a humble, thoughtful leader who grew a non profit organization to over 10,000 volunteers, 10,000 people who gave up their time, not for a paycheck, but for a cause they believed in. Today's episode is going to be a solo cast where I reflect on Dan's lessons about purpose, ownership and mastery, and add my own thoughts on what I believe that people crave in the workplace, and the actions that leaders can take every day to inspire their people into meaningful action through giving them what they want. Welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm your host, Mick Spiers in today's episode, we're going to be unpacking the lessons from Dan Johnson about purpose, ownership and mastery, and I'll be adding my thoughts on what you can do every single day as a leader to inspire people into meaningful action by understanding what they are craving In the workplace and what actions, what little actions you can do every day to make sure you're giving people what they need. Dan Johnson learned the answer the hard way. He opened up about what went wrong in his own leadership moments where he got it wrong, where he was focused on metrics over meaning, process over people. But what he discovered through painful reflection was this, when you lead with humility and humanity, people will walk through fire for you, Dan now teaches what he calls the three great motivators in non profit. And frankly, all of these are leadership topics. The three pillars for him were purpose, ownership and mastery, and these are things that people crave. Purpose is about the why, not just the big, lofty vision of the organization, what I often call the macro why, but the immediate, tangible sense of why their individual work matters. The micro wise. Why this task? Why this decision? Why now when people can connect their day to day actions with a bigger purpose? Their energy shifts, their engagement lifts, and their effort soars. Simon Sinek captured this beautifully in his book, start with why people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. The same is true for employees and volunteers. When they understand the why, the macro why and the micro wise, deeply and emotionally, it fuels something intrinsic. So the first thing that you can give people as a leader is purpose, help them understand the macro why? Why does this team exist? What makes it important? Why does this organization exist? What makes that important, and then the micro wise, why does what I do every day, my tasks matter? And these decisions that we make, what was the rationale behind these decisions? And when people have purpose and when they have understanding of why we're doing what we're doing, they unlock something magical. The second pillar was ownership. Ownership is about giving people agency, trusting them, empowering them, creating the conditions where they feel like the work belongs to them, that their fingerprints are on it, not just something being done to them. When people take ownership, they start driving outcomes. Not just completing tasks, they find ways to solve the problem that they've been asked to solve, they start thinking like CO creators, not just cogs in a machine. This idea echoes the work of Daniel Pink in Drive, where he identified autonomy as one of the key drivers of motivation. People are more engaged when they feel they have control over their work, when they're not just following orders, but they're shaping outcomes. And the third pillar is mastery. Mastery is about growth. It's about learning. It's about getting better every day at something that matters. When people feel like they're developing, like they're progressing, they're more likely to stay engaged, take initiative and find fulfillment in the work. Again, Daniel Pink's work here reinforces this mastery is a powerful intrinsic motivator, and Carol Dweck growth mindset reminds. Reminds us that people thrive when they believe they can improve through effort. Leaders can create environments where people are challenged and supported to grow, when they have opportunities to learn and grow, where they're trusted to take on new tasks that might be just outside their comfort zone, but they're empowered and enabled to be successful in that task, and when they're given the ability to put their own mark on the work. All right, now I want to bring this to something a little deeper, beyond purpose, ownership and mastery. I believe people crave something profoundly human in the workplace. They want to feel seen, they want to feel heard, they want to feel valued. They want to feel like they matter. They want to feel like what they do matters, and they want to feel like they belong to something bigger than themselves. And as leaders, we have the ability and the responsibility to give people these things, we can give them great gifts every single day, the gift of purpose by aligning their work to both the macro wise and the micro wise, the gift of presence by giving them our undivided attention in moments that matter. When you're having those one on ones, don't be on your phone, don't be distracted by some other task, look them in the eye. Be fully present. When you are fully present, they feel that presence, and beyond that, you also learn more. If you're fully present, you're paying attention and you're picking up what's being said, but you're also picking up what's not being said. So you will do a better job when you are present. Multitasking doesn't work. So give your people the gift of your presence, it'll elevate your performance, as well as theirs, the gift of trust by empowering them to take ownership and making their own decisions. Outline the problem that you're asking them to solve, giving them the big purpose of okay, this is what we need to do, and here's why it's important. But then empower them to find the solution. Don't just tell them what to do, have them take some ownership by empowering them so that they can work out their own way of solving that problem and give them the gift of growth, by giving them opportunities to learn, develop and master new skills. This might include letting go of some of the things that you like to do by giving someone else the opportunity to do that. For me, I love public speaking. I absolutely love it. But if every time an opportunity for public speaking comes up, if I'm the one that sticks up my hand and says while I'm doing it, no one else is learning how to do it. So give them opportunities for learning and growth. So every day, look for how you can give them the gift of purpose, the gift of presence, the gift of trust and the gift of growth, these may sound like small things, but they are deeply meaningful, and when given authentically, they change everything. All of this aligns beautifully with the work of Dr William Glasser and his choice theory. So there's some psychological evidence behind this. Glasser describes five fundamental needs that drive human behavior, the need for survival, basic physical and emotional safety. Yes, survival might have changed over times. We don't have saber tooth tigers at the edge of the cave anymore, but people feel under threat, and when they feel under threat, they might behave or react in an irrational way. So give them survival, give them safety. Number two, love and belonging, the need for connection and community and to feel that they belong to something bigger than just themselves. This can also drive irrational behavior. Sometimes, this need for love and belonging can sometimes be greater than the need to be right. And you'll end up with some unusual behaviors that are driven by the need to feel that they are loved and the need to feel that they belong, that they don't want to stand out from the crowd. This is where peer pressure can take over, and people will start doing things that are actually a little bit away from their values, because they want to feel that they belong. The third is the need for power, and this one's not about dominance. It's about a sense of competence and influence and a feeling that I do matter. Number four is the need for freedom. This is about autonomy, about choice, about freedom of choice, and about freedom from oppression. This is a fundamental human need. People don't like being told what to do you. They like to have choice in what they do, even if they're following you as a leader. They like to think that they made that choice themselves. And this is where empowerment and trust comes in. Give them freedom of choice and free them from oppression when it comes to how they might go about doing their work. And the fifth need from glass horse fun, the need for the joy of play, creativity and meaningful engagement. So don't forget that we get a bit serious sometimes in the workplace, don't forget that it is okay to have a bit of fun as well. So have a think about how these show up in your team when people are disengaged. Could it be that one of these needs is not being met? The need for survival, the need for love and belonging, need for power, need for freedom, need for fun, when people go above and beyond? Could it be that these needs are being met? So their positive emotions are when their needs are being met, their negative emotions are signals that one of their needs are not being met. This also aligns with Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs beyond survival and safety. Human beings crave love, esteem, and for him, it was ultimately what he called self actualization. Great leaders understand this. They don't just manage performance. They elevate potential by tapping into fundamental human needs. So here's my call to action today. When was the last time you gave people what they crave in the workplace, to give them the feeling that they feel seen, that they feel heard, that they feel valued, that what they do matters and that that they matter, that they belong to something bigger than themselves. When was the last time you give them the gift of purpose, the gift of your presence, the gift of your trust and the gift of growth? And are you giving them these fundamental psychological needs, including the need for freedom of choice? Are you giving this to your people? And what action will you take today, this week and this month, to turn that into a habitual practice? Because here's the truth, leadership is not about control. It's about connection. It's about creating a space where people can do their very best work, become their very best selves and feel part of something meaningful. It's about putting people before process, purpose before policies and meaning before metrics, because when people feel seen, heard, valued and connected to purpose, they don't just do good work, they do extraordinary work. So that's it for today. In the next episode, we'll be joined by Lynn Daniel, founder and CEO of the Daniel group, and he's a customer experience expert that is going to talk to us about building a resilient organization. Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project mickspiers.com a huge call out to Faris Sedek for his video editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at TLP. Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo and my amazing wife Sei Spiers, I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Now, in the meantime, please do, take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.