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The Fundamental Question Most Business Leaders Never Ask

Understand this to reveal your central belief about business.

By Inc.Arabia Staff
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BY MOSHE ENGELBERG, PHD, SPEAKER, EXECUTIVE COACH, AND AUTHOR OF "THE AMARE WAVE"@MOSHEENGELBERG

I asked my client Troy, the CFO of a very large health care system, this simple (and totally overlooked) four-word question: Why does business exist? 

Think about it. Your answer to why business (meaning the enterprise of business overall) exists provides powerful insights that can help you as a leader clarify your worldview about business and work. And your answer affects everything -- your values, your priorities, your commitments. 

Read More: 1 Simple Habit That Separates Winning Leaders From Wannabe Leaders

For Troy, business exists to deliver products and services that make money. This is a highly transactional worldview. For Amare love-powered leaders, business exists to make life better for people. That's how business provides value to society and why Amare businesses prosper long-term.

Neither response is more right or wrong. Each is simply a perspective, an operating model. The key is to be aware of your worldview, because it will drive how you lead. The more conscious you are about it, the more you can make choices that are in alignment with your worldview.

  • Why do you think business exists?

  • How does your worldview toward business affect how you lead?

4 Steps to Get Clear on Your Beliefs About Business 

  1. Get super-clear. Complete this sentence. Business exists _________ so that _________ so that _________. Repeat a few times with different responses to all the blanks. Notice which set of responses rings most true for you. Do this with your team too.

  2. Connect to your business. Now complete this sentence. My business exists _________ so that _________ so that _________. Note how your answer aligns (or not) with your beliefs about why business overall exists. 

  3. Money, money, money. As a thought experiment, imagine that making money is an essential byproduct of business, but not its purpose. Consider how that perspective might impact your thinking process and the decisions you make. 

  4. Dive deeper. Check out the chapter called "Business & the Evolution of Consciousness" in my leadership book The Amare Wave. Pay attention to how your consciousness as a leader is evolving too. 

The worldview of love-powered leaders is that business is first and foremost a social enterprise that exists to make life better for people by meeting important needs. They see economics as the engine that runs business, not as its purpose. Know your worldview and be a conscious leader who lives with authenticity and alignment.

Photo credit: Getty Images.

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