THE TRIPLE AXIS OF SERVICE
PEOPLE, PURPOSE, IMPACT
There is a misunderstanding that often follows leaders through much of their work: the belief that service is simple, singular, or neatly contained. Many assume service is something directed exclusively toward people — the team, the clients, the individuals who depend on their decisions. But service in leadership is far more dimensional than that, and reducing it to one direction flattens the very depth that gives leadership its meaning.
True service rests on three axes: People, Purpose, and Impact. They are always in motion, constantly influencing one another, shaping the tone and direction of every decision. No leader holds them in perfect balance, nor is that the goal. Leadership is not about equilibrium; it is about discernment — the ability to know which dimension must take precedence in a particular moment, and why.
Most leaders recognise this instinctively. They feel the difference between the days when their presence must steady the people around them, and the moments when their responsibility is to protect the purpose that gives the work its coherence. There are times when the essential question is not who needs support, but what the work itself is asking for, and how a decision will shape the organisation’s impact far beyond immediate concerns.
This movement between the axes is not a complication; it is the core of leadership. When leaders understand service as an active calibration — a living interplay between people, purpose, and the consequences of their choices — clarity emerges. And that clarity is often felt long before it is articulated.
Serving People: Recognition, Alignment, and the Realities of Work
Serving people does not mean shaping the work around their preferences, nor does it mean sheltering them from the natural demands of their role. Mature leaders know this instinctively. They understand that service begins with recognition — the ability to see someone’s real potential, not just their performance or their position on an organisational chart.
In a perfect world, every individual would sit in a role that brings out their strongest abilities, their natural curiosity, and their sense of contribution. But no organisation, no matter how well designed, can offer perfect alignment all the time. Every role contains tasks that energise and tasks that simply need to be done. Service is not about eliminating the latter; it is about ensuring that the former are not buried beneath them.
The leaders who serve people most effectively are the ones who pay attention. They notice when someone is quietly underutilised, not because they lack skill, but because their strengths are pointing in a different direction. They recognise when an employee is competent in a role but not alive in it, and they have the courage to explore whether a shift in position or responsibility might unlock something more meaningful — not only for the individual, but for the organisation itself.
I have seen teams transform almost overnight when people were moved into roles that suited them more closely. The change was not dramatic; it was immediate. Energy returned. Initiative resurfaced. The work regained its clarity. Alignment, even when imperfect, creates momentum.
Serving people, then, is not indulgence. It is discernment. It is the practice of understanding who someone is capable of becoming and creating enough space for that potential to take shape, while still honouring the realities and responsibilities of the work at hand.
Serving Purpose: The Compass That Gives Work Its Meaning
Purpose is often spoken about as if it were a branding exercise, a beautifully phrased sentence on a website, or a motivational device for team meetings. But leaders who genuinely serve purpose know that it is none of these things. Purpose is the organising principle of an organisation — the anchor that prevents drift, the lens through which decisions gain coherence, and the reason people can attach meaning to their work.
In a perfect world, every company would have a purpose so clear, so grounded, and so resonant that it almost pulls people forward. But many organisations operate without one, or mistake financial targets for purpose. Profit matters, of course — without it, nothing grows. But profit cannot be the purpose. When money becomes the centre of gravity, companies lose their narrative, and leaders find themselves constantly reinventing strategies, products, and identities in an attempt to compensate for the emptiness at the core. It is an exhausting way to work, and it rarely inspires anyone.
People do not commit to numbers. They commit to meaning. And meaning is what allows them to understand their work in a deeper, more coherent way — to see not just what they are doing, but why it matters. Understanding is not possible without context, and context is what purpose provides.
A leader serves purpose by making that meaning transparent. They articulate not only what the organisation does, but why it exists in the first place — and they do so in a way that others can locate themselves within the story. Purpose becomes real when people can see how their work contributes to something larger than their individual responsibilities, when they understand the role they play in the organisation’s impact, and when they feel connected to the direction the company is moving toward.
Serving purpose is not about protecting a slogan; it is about preserving alignment. It is the work of safeguarding the organisation from drifting into activity without intention. Purpose steadies people, clarifies decisions, and provides the moral and strategic weight that keeps leadership from collapsing into short-term thinking.
A leader who serves purpose gives their organisation its centre — something firm enough to guide it, and open enough to let people belong to it.
Serving Impact: Extending Purpose Into the World
If purpose gives an organisation its centre, impact gives it its reach. Impact is the expression of purpose beyond the walls of the company — the way an organisation touches clients, industries, communities, and ultimately the world it operates within. Leaders who serve impact understand that their decisions do not end where the company’s balance sheet does. Every choice ripples outward, shaping experiences, expectations, and standards far beyond what they can immediately see.
When purpose and people are aligned, impact becomes a natural extension of the work. But alignment does not guarantee intention. Impact requires leaders to look beyond internal priorities and consider what their organisation contributes, disturbs, or advances in the broader landscape. It is not a metric; it is an outcome of consciousness.
Some leaders think of impact primarily in terms of scale — more customers, more visibility, more market share. But scale without meaning is simply expansion. Impact is different. It is the ability to improve something, elevate something, or clarify something for the people you serve. It is the imprint a company leaves on the world, not the footprint it occupies.
Impact forces leaders to confront questions that numbers cannot answer:
Does our work make a difference?
Does it solve a real problem?
Does it move something forward that is worth moving?
An organisation that serves impact understands that its role is not confined to transactions, but to transformation — even if that transformation is small, local, or quiet. What matters is not magnitude but direction.
When leaders serve impact, the work gains a sense of consequence. People begin to understand that what they do reaches further than they imagined, and that awareness strengthens both accountability and pride. Impact is the horizon line of service: the place where purpose becomes visible.
The Balancing Act: Knowing Which Axis the Moment Demands
The work of leadership does not lie in choosing one axis of service and elevating it above the others. It lies in recognising which dimension needs attention in a given moment — and having the steadiness to respond accordingly. People, Purpose, and Impact are not competing forces. They are interdependent streams of responsibility that shift in importance as circumstances change.
A leader knows that there are moments when the people must come first: when someone needs context to move forward, when a misunderstanding threatens collaboration, or when a person’s potential is waiting for acknowledgment. But those same leaders understand that service to people cannot replace service to purpose. Purpose anchors decisions when opinions differ, when uncertainty rises, or when the work needs to be held to a standard that transcends individual preference.
And then there are times when the question of impact moves to the foreground. Decisions with far-reaching consequences require a different kind of attention, one that looks beyond immediate comfort and toward the longer arc of what the organisation is contributing to the world. In such moments, service is measured not by how easy a choice is, but by how aligned it is with what the organisation is meant to become.
Leadership becomes difficult only when one axis is held as the default, regardless of context. A leader who focuses exclusively on people risks losing direction. One who focuses only on purpose risks rigidity. One who prizes impact above all risks detaches from the humanity that makes impact meaningful. The art is not in dividing these responsibilities, but in weaving them.
Discernment is the quiet skill that allows leaders to sense the centre of gravity in any situation. When they respond from that centre, their decisions gain a coherence that others can feel — even before they understand the reasoning behind it.
Integrated Leadership: The Maturity of Service
Mature leadership begins where separation ends. Most people approach leadership as if its responsibilities can be neatly categorised: serve your team, protect the mission, drive results. But real service does not live in categories. It lives in the ability to hold multiple truths at once and to act from a place that honours all of them.
When leaders integrate People, Purpose, and Impact, something subtle but powerful shifts, and their decisions stop oscillating between extremes. Their communication becomes clearer. Their presence gains weight, not because they exert authority, but because their reasoning is rooted in a coherence that others can sense. People feel steadier around leaders who are grounded in something larger than preference or momentary pressure.
An integrated leader can support an individual without losing sight of the organisation’s direction. They can protect the purpose without becoming doctrinaire. They can drive meaningful impact without sacrificing the dignity of the people who make that impact possible. This integration is not a technique; it is a maturity that develops through reflection, self-awareness, and the willingness to examine one’s own motivations.
Service, in its deepest form, is the alignment of intention and consequence. It is the recognition that leadership is not a role you perform, but a responsibility you inhabit. And when leaders inhabit that responsibility fully — when they see their people clearly, articulate purpose transparently, and consider the ripple effects of their choices — the organisation begins to operate with a kind of internal harmony. Not perfect, not static, but unmistakably grounded.
Integrated leadership does not promise ease. What it offers is clarity. And clarity is the condition under which people can do their best thinking, contribute their best work, and trust that they are part of something that deserves their effort.
Every organisation eventually reaches a point where the question is no longer about strategy, resources, or even performance, but about alignment — whether people understand what they are working toward, why it matters, and how their efforts connect to a purpose that extends beyond their immediate tasks. When that alignment falters, even the most talented teams lose momentum. When it strengthens, almost anything becomes possible.
The triad of People, Purpose, and Impact is not a model to memorise. It is a lens through which to see the deeper architecture of leadership. It reminds us that service is not the soft language of support, but the disciplined practice of bringing clarity to complexity. It is the work of holding a direction without losing sight of the individuals who make the journey possible, and the work of shaping outcomes that matter beyond the confines of the organisation itself.
If something in this resonates, it may be because you recognise these three axes in your own leadership — perhaps one that feels strong and one that calls for attention. That recognition is not a critique; it is an invitation. Leadership evolves the moment we become conscious of the forces we are shaping, and the forces that are shaping us.
So as you consider the path ahead, ask yourself:
Which axis of service is speaking the loudest right now — and which one needs you to listen more closely?