Why Meaning at Work Unlocks High-Performance Leadership
Performance starts with meaning. Leaders who create community, clarify contribution, and offer challenge unlock engagement, resilience, and results that no metric alone can deliver.
I’ve seen enough strategy decks and leadership development programs to fill a small library. But very few scratch at the question that truly drives performance: Do people feel their work matters? During a recent conversation hosted by the Vanguard Network, we zeroed in on this foundational idea.
Wes Adams, co-author of the new book Meaningful Work, put it like this: “Meaning at work is the upstream factor that drives all the outcomes we want - engagement, performance, even bottom-line results.” Adams’s point is backed by real data. Research out of Oxford University shows a strong correlation between perceived meaning at work and metrics like revenue, profit, and stock price.
That’s not trivial. As leaders, we often chase performance through incentives, metrics, and restructures. But maybe the real lever lies elsewhere - in helping our teams find purpose, connection, and ownership.
Meaning Is the New Mandate
“We want from work what we used to get from religion and community,” Adams said, quoting therapist and workplace thinker Esther Perel. Belonging. Purpose. Meaning. That struck a chord with me. Expectations have shifted - especially post-COVID. People are less content to clock in, perform tasks, and go home. They want to know they’re part of something. And if they don’t feel that, they disengage, quietly quit and leave.
Leadership, then, is not simply about directing traffic. It’s about being intentional in creating environments where meaning can take root.
The Three C’s of Meaningful Work
In their book, Adams and his co-author Tamara Myles organize meaningful work into three buckets: community, contribution, and challenge.
Community is about belonging. It’s about bringing your whole self to work and being seen - really seen - by others.
In a hybrid world, this requires deliberate effort.
Adams shared a tool used by former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called “The Inside Scoop” - a short ritual where team members share a photo or personal object during a meeting. Five minutes. No heavy lifting. But it builds connection and trust, the raw materials of high performance.
As for contribution, this is the understanding that your work matters - whether you’re a software engineer at a hot startup or running maintenance on servers in a data center.
Adams recounted a story of a worker at such a facility who, during the isolation of COVID, reconnected with the idea that her efforts helped doctors communicate and children attend remote school.
The tasks hadn’t changed. But her story about the tasks had. “That’s positive psychology at work,” Adams said.
Finally, challenge is the growth piece. It’s not just about promotions but about stretch.
“We want to believe we’re becoming better,” Adams noted. “That we’re learning. That we have a path ahead.”
The Leader’s Role
Here’s the leadership opportunity hiding in plain sight: According to Adams, leadership behaviors account for nearly 50% of how meaningful we perceive our jobs to be. That’s massive. Meaning isn’t just a brand value or a line in the culture deck. It’s something we either create or diminish through our day-to-day actions. Do we express genuine gratitude? Do we show people how their work connects to enterprise impact? Do we offer stretch assignments even in “flat” environments?
These don’t require a new C-suite initiative. They require better habits - embodied up and down the org chart. As Adams said: “It’s not about doing more. It’s about doing the right things intentionally.”
Reworking the Model
Businesses today are still largely structured on the industrial-age model: a top-down hierarchy designed to manage repetitive tasks. But that world is fading. AI and automation are handling the rote. Human value is now in creativity, agility, insight. And those qualities aren’t summoned by micromanagement or fear. They only emerge when people feel safe, seen, and significant.
Which brings us right back to meaning. Grounds for optimism? I think so. Any leader, regardless of budget or title, can take steps tomorrow to foster community, clarify contribution, and create opportunities for challenge.
Those small steps, taken consistently, are what high-performance leadership truly looks like.