What is purposeful leadership?

Routes grows compassionate leaders, supporting everyone we work with to lead with purpose, according to our three key values: joy, welcome and patience.

Joy

We believe that great leaders bring joy to everything they do. They make experiences delightful; they default to optimism and positivity; they bring a smile to their work and uplift those around them. One of our faculty members, Cat, once described mentoring as leading by, ‘flying another person like a kite, not walking them on a lead.’ We believe our mentors help their mentees to fly through joy.

Welcome

We don’t stick to many rules at Routes, however there is one rule we do keep: welcome every new person who enters the room. We believe that a sense of genuine welcome is the foundation on which we are all able to flourish. Feeling welcomed, held and supported enables us to take risks, make mistakes and open up our minds to new and exciting possibilities. From sitting in circles where everyone can be seen, to learning people’s names; from thanking people for their contributions, to catching people up on what they’ve missed – we know that leaders who lead with small acts of welcome make all the difference.

Patience

Each one of us has a different lived experience, different core values and beliefs, different memories and associations, different skill sets and habits, different likes and dislikes. Our understandings and measures of ‘success’ therefore differ too. We believe that compassionate leadership has a respect of this at its core. We support our mentors to lead with patience, driven by an awareness (and a celebration) of the nuances and complexities of what it means to be human.


If you would like to develop your compassionate leadership skills, why not apply to become a Routes mentor or get in touch to discuss how we could train your future leaders.