In mid-July I participated in a conference sponsored by FRIENDS National Center for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention. The gathering kicked off a year-long leadership institute for people working in child abuse prevention around the country. The FRIENDS Leadership Institute’s purpose is to develop a cohort of leaders with the skill to move their organizations toward family-strengthened primary prevention whatever positions they are in. The conference featured national leadership experts and many opportunities for peer learning. It aimed to expose participants to thought provoking systems leadership that participants might adapt to their own contexts.
The institute opened with a presentation describing the work of an organization called Blue Zones. I was slightly familiar with the concept of Blue Zones, having read many articles about the secrets of living a robust life into old age. The presentation shared many other lessons from these Blue Zones for creating and sustaining a thriving family, team, community, and culture.
Before diving into one of the lessons, Chat GPT offers a brief history of Blue Zones:
“In the early 2000s, National Geographic Fellow Dan Buettner set out to uncover the secrets of longevity by studying regions of the world where people live the longest, healthiest lives. These “Blue Zones” — including places like Okinawa, Japan, Sardinia, Italy and the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica — share surprising commonalities not just in diet and lifestyle, but in social structure, sense of purpose, and community design.
What began as a global investigation into longevity has grown into a powerful systems-based approach to improving well-being at the community level. Today, the Blue Zones organization helps cities and workplaces redesign environments to make healthy living easier and more natural — revealing lessons that extend far beyond physical health and into the heart of leadership and culture.”
One theme that struck me about Blue Zones is that people living in them tend to have a strong sense of purpose. In fact, having a strong sense of purpose was not only an individual characteristic but was also an ingrained aspect of their culture. In some Blue Zones there is even a name for that quality. In Okinawa it’s called “ikigai” and Nicoyans called it “plan de vida.”
The link between purpose and longevity has been well studied over the past few years. A 2022 study found older adults with a strong sense of purpose had a 46% lower risk of mortality over four years compared to those with the lowest scores. Research also shows that purpose-driven individuals are less likely to develop cardiovascular disease, experience cognitive decline, or suffer from depression.
A 2019 study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association has linked a strong sense of purpose with a lower risk of all-cause mortality after age 50. They found that participants who had the lowest life-purpose scores were twice as likely to have died than those with the highest scores.
These findings don’t just apply to personal health—they have deep implications for how we lead organizations.
You’re probably aware that burnout has become one of the biggest leadership challenges globally. While burnout prevention and recovery are complex and systemic, there is evidence that having a strong sense of purpose can mitigate the condition.
Think about all the possibilities that exist in the workplace for people to live their purpose. And not only might your people be healthier, but helping individuals and teams connect their work to a larger purpose strengthens motivation, aligns efforts, and contributes to more positive and fulfilling workplaces.
In 2023, I was part of a team that led a year-long initiative called “Find Your Why” (FYW). This initiative aimed to help every individual and team in a National Institutes of Health organization define their Why. We believed that helping people identify and live from their Why would rekindling motivation and reduce post-pandemic burnout. In the summer of 2024, we published an article in the OD Review on the results of the initiative.
During the process we explored ways individual, team, and organizational Whys could be used to shape decisions, onboard new employees, and align roles and responsibilities for effectiveness and employee satisfaction.
Based on what we learned, here are four strategies leaders can apply right away:
Tell more stories: Foster connection by inviting teams and individuals to share stories regularly about times when they felt proud, fulfilled, or energized. Purpose, meaning, and values will be embedded in the stories.
Connect your leaders: Have leadership team members experience the individual Why process together, as a way of deepening connection and relationship. Have them develop a team Why that aligns them to the essential purpose of the organization. Challenge them to be pollinators of purpose—Whys—whenever they interact with others.
Operationalize the Why: While sharing stories and creating Whys are “feel good” experiences, challenge your workforce to operationalize their Whys. What are the behaviors, practices, and ways of being that demonstrate to others you are working and living from purpose?
Have Why-focused conversations: Talk with each person you supervise or mentor about how to align their work with purpose, specifically addressing workload, prioritization, and burnout. Gallup research shows that managers can help stem burnout when they listen deeply and invite dialogue that engages the employee in co-creating solutions.
As you think about your own team or organization, where do you see opportunities to connect people more deeply to a sense of purpose? Whether it’s through storytelling, redefining priorities, or simply having honest conversations about what matters most, small actions can have a big impact. I invite you to choose one of the four strategies that resonates most with you and put it into practice this month. Then notice what shifts—in energy, engagement, and connection.
And stay tuned: in the months ahead, I’ll share more lessons from the Blue Zones that can help you lead skillfully.