Visionary leadership, identity & motivation: Become a meaning maker

This week we start off with exploring the essence of meaning, and why meaning is important at work. We also explore the conditions that facilitate or hinder meaning making. We look at how meaning could be enhanced by ensuring a fit between work and those who undertake it. We talk about the importance of linking employees’ activities with a significant bigger purpose and how this might be accomplished. We look at aspects of designing work to increase meaning and then flip our perspective and try to understand the concept of meaninglessness and some of the factors that contribute to meaninglessness.

This week you will explore a slightly different perspective on meaning making that highlights the role of neuroscience and storytelling. You will look at how the brain works and how to influence people’s interpretation of meaning. You will learn some physiological techniques to project meaning through your voice and breath, body language and posture. You will learn how storytelling exploits some of our ancient tribal instincts to trigger meaning making.

In this week, you will learn about the role of branding in communicating meanings, and the role of different levels of meanings, including functional, emotional, and higher purpose in this communication process. You will be shown how to shape meanings you wish to communicate and how to shape the perceptions of your organisation's stakeholders over the long-term. You will be introduced to different categories of brand meanings or brand personalities. You will also analyse visual and verbal brand elements, and also supporting branding strategies in communicating those personalities and meanings through brand names, logos, characters, and taglines, among others.

In this week, you will put the management of meaning in a wider societal and historical context and appreciate that we don’t invent meanings for things as central to our lives as the work we do from scratch – the meaning this holds for people is instead patterned onto and dovetails with much longer values and ideas. Understanding this gives us a better grasp of what we can hope to achieve, and the limitations and difficulties that we face, when seeking to create meaning for others through our leadership roles. You will be introduced to the three most significant understandings of the problem of meaning in relation to work and business that have been formulated across two centuries of academic work - Marxist alienation of work, Weberian religious spirit of capitalism, and the contemporary new spirit of capitalism with emphasis on aspects such as innovation and social responsibility. You will be guided through thinking about the implications of these ideas for how we approach meaning making today. By developing an appreciation of these major social theories of meaning, you will be better able to appreciate both the possibilities and the limitations that you, and other leaders, are faced with in making and managing meaning.