Why Does A Team Need A Common Purpose?

When a team is busy and under pressure, it’s easy for “what we’re doing” to crowd out “why we’re doing it.” Individuals get lost in their tasks and quickly become detached from the ambitions of the team and their leader. However research consistently shows that clarity and alignment around shared goals and purpose are linked to stronger commitment, better coordination, and more adaptive performance—especially when work is uncertain or fast-changing. If individuals are clear on their 'North Star', they are more likely to move towards it if they start feeling lost.

Team coaching supports this process and can help leaders and their teams bring clarity to their purpose. Done well, team coaching doesn’t manufacture a slogan; it helps a group surface what matters, agree priorities, and translate purpose into everyday decisions. Recent evidence highlights that leaders who create the conditions for learning and alignment—through open and honest conversations, a regular opportunity to review what is working and what isn't and supporting an environment where team members feel safe will bring about improved performance and higher productivity. Confusion wastes time, clarity saves time.

Why a common purpose is harder than it sounds

A team can have individual clarity without collective clarity. Team members may understand their own tasks yet still pull in different directions. Studies of “purpose dialogue” suggest that talking explicitly about purpose increases commitment partly by building consensus on tasks and objectives. Likewise, emerging work on team goal clarity associates shared clarity to improved  performance—exactly what most organisations need from teams today.

What leaders can do to build shared purpose (practically)

Leaders don’t need to write the purpose for the team—they need to enable the discussion so the team can agree their purpose collectively. Team coaching often supports leaders to:

• Start with stakeholders and value: Who do we serve, and what do they need from us this?
• Co-create “compelling direction”: Define 2–3 outcomes the team will be proud of, plus what you’ll stop doing to make space.
• Make purpose visible in routines: Add a 5-minute “purpose check” to weekly meetings: Which decisions this week best served our purpose?
• Re-align after change: Any restructure, new leader, or shifting priorities is a prompt to refresh purpose, not assume it holds.
  

References:

Durand, R. (2025). Is team commitment related to dialogue about corporate purpose? Long Range Planning.
Koeslag-Kreunen, M., Van der Klink, M., Van den Bossche, P., & Gijselaers, W. (2018). When leadership powers team learning: A meta-analysis. Small Group Research.
Leblanc, P. M., et al. (2024). A meta-analysis of team reflexivity: Antecedents, outcomes, and boundary conditions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.
Team goal clarity and individual adaptive performance (2025). SAGE Open.