09-21-2026
As a professor at the Daniels School of Business, I greatly value when a student shares an insight that teaches me something new or reminds me of something important. Recent Purdue University and Larsen Leaders Academy graduate Austin Watson does just that in our latest installment of Lessons from Larsen.
Austin reflects on his experiences at Purdue and the Larsen Leaders Academy and how those experiences helped him as a leader. But Austin also goes further back in time to an early and enduring influence in his life, his mom. He mentions something his mom instilled in him, something I think all leaders can develop: “walk with purpose.” Such a simple concept.
To “walk with purpose” does not mean pretending to be someone you are not. Rather, Austin’s insight is one that defines a true authentic leader.
Brad Alge
Managing Director
Larsen Leaders Academy
At LLA we talk about finding our why to lead the way. But Austin reminds us that maybe finding our why is not enough. To get people to follow, others need and want to see your ‘why’. They need to see it in how you comport yourself as a leader. It is important for people to see your purpose shine through.
Austin Watson
As a young boy in Indiana, once elementary school was out for the summer, my mom would often take me and my siblings along on afternoon errands to the store or post office. These are memories I look back on with fondness. However, what sticks out to me now, more than the eye-level candy bars in the checkout line, is the pointed yet gracious phrase my mom often spoke as we walked from store to store, and I trailed behind the pack. “Walk with purpose!” she would say while looking back. Now, my mom could have looked back and said, “Hurry up, you are falling behind! What are you doing back there?” and at times she was probably thinking it. But each time I was in my own little world, she graciously would encourage, “Walk with purpose!” My mom’s intention, encouragement and gracious tone still rings in my ears. But as a young business leader today, those particular words ring with a fresh depth far beyond my lack of pace in the grocery store.
As we look around our world today, we are captivated by increasingly rapid innovation, continuous improvement, and evolving fads. Said differently, change. Looking back throughout history, there is very little that remains unchanged for long. Yet there is a prevailing desire, hardwired into each one of us, that has stood the test of time. A desire for a sense of purpose. From the dawn of creation to the current AI revolution, humans have demonstrated a critical need for a sense of purpose. When purpose was clear, societies, communities and teams flourished. And when that purpose was unclear, division, war and destruction took place. That is why, in my opinion, purpose-driven leaders will no longer be a nice-to-have or an added bonus in firms going forward, but rather a critical characteristic. Ever increasing accountability and visibility in today’s firms, paired with employees' desire for purpose and impact in the workplace, will make a purpose-driven approach the new normal for business leaders.
So, how does one become a purpose-driven leader? I will be the first to admit I have far from perfected it at my ripe old age of 23. However, in addition to my own few experiences, I have learned from the examples of world-class purpose-driven leaders both past and present and have found three key commonalities. Purpose-driven leaders have high conviction on the “why,” are people-focused, and understand how to turn purpose into performance.
It is often said that the “why” informs the what. In 1997, Steve Jobs had just returned to lead Apple, which was flailing in a collection of underperforming technologies and weeks from insolvency. Yet, fighting against the pressure to make short-term decisions that would have cannibalized the core business, Jobs had high conviction on Apple’s “why” — to be a customer experience-driven business. Some would say he righted the ship with the following quote at an Apple Developer Conference that same year: “You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backward to the technology.” This was radical, as most of the industry at that time led with technical specs. In this way, Jobs used purpose as a filter for action, not a slogan on the wall. Apple returned to profitability the following year, and we all know how the story goes from there. Purpose-driven leaders have high conviction on the “why.”
In my sophomore year in the Larsen Leaders Academy, I had the opportunity to go on the Gettysburg trip to walk a Civil War battlefield and stand in the spot where Lincoln was believed to have delivered the Gettysburg Address. In concluding the address, Lincoln states, “… and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Lincoln so clearly does two things. He taps into his people’s desire for purpose to spur them on to action. In addition, he knew that the war was not about his own political success, nor was it for personal financial gain. He clearly understood that the effort they were engaging in was to ensure democracy would prevail and ultimately believed it was best for the people. How would the impact of organizations change if purpose-driven leaders tapped into people’s innate desire for purpose and took the humble posture that their organization, school, or business was “of the people, by the people, for the people?” How far are organizations in our country from that vision right now? Purpose-driven leaders are people-focused leaders.
That said, purpose in a silo is about as effective as a car with no engine. As the expectation grows for executives to lead with purpose, many have, and I expect many more, will get overly tangled up and lost in identifying their purpose. The main challenge? Purpose must be focused and cannot be disjointed from long-term economics. In 2010, a startup named WeWork was born. Their purpose? Creating a global community and elevating the world’s consciousness. Although eccentric, the purpose proved to be an invitation to wander, as opposed to a filter for action. This led WeWork to seek aggressive and unfocused growth that ultimately led to their 2023 bankruptcy. So, what happened? Their unfocused purpose, detached from performance, led to destruction. Purpose-driven leaders integrate purpose and performance to ensure both the people and the business thrive in the long term.
I would be hypocritical if I shared all this and wasn’t doing my best to put it into practice in my own life and career. In my current role, seeking to invest and operate in the lower middle market, I see a differentiated opportunity for purpose-driven leadership in Main Street America. Small businesses account for nearly half of private sector employment in the U.S. and are often the closest to the consumer — providing services in our homes and storefronts each day. This combination of breadth of reach and proximity to the community is a driving factor in my desire to invest in this corner of the market: to directly impact the nation, one community at a time, through a purpose-driven approach that produces outsized returns. That is why I believe purpose-driven leadership is critical, both in the corner office and on the shop floor, ensuring customers, employees and communities thrive as a result of the way businesses are led. This is possible when leaders with high conviction on their “why” focus on people and translate purpose into performance, propelling our economy, our lives and our world forward.
Whether you work for a major corporation or small business or lead an organization at Purdue or in your city, thriving communities are often led by purpose-driven people like you and me — in the classroom, in your company or in your neighborhood. And if I could encourage you with one line today, I would use a phrase 6-year-old Austin knows all too well: Walk with purpose.
