The Ripple Effect: How Purpose-Driven Leadership Creates Real Impact

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What is Learning in Action?

Hosted by the Ivey Executive Education at Ivey Business School, Learning in Action explores current topics in leadership and organizations. In this podcasting series, we invite our world-class faculty and a variety of industry experts to deliver insights from the latest research in leadership, examine areas of disruption and growth, and discuss how leaders can shape their organizations for success. 

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Episode Transcript:

WREN MONTGOMERY: --activism or making change or having purpose-- I think could be any of those-- to thinking of being in a choir. So you do get tired. So have this collective voice trying to make change. Each of us do get tired, need to take a break, need to check in. But the movement continues on, or that change continues on. And then you can jump back in when you're more energized. And other people can take a little detour or have a break or whatever they need.

NARRATOR: Welcome to Learning in Action, where we explore research, ideas, and advice to help you lead and grow in business. In this episode, we're exploring what happens when leadership is anchored in purpose, not as a slogan but as a strategy. We're talking about the kind of leadership that shapes culture, influences systems, and drives long-term results.

This is The Ripple Effect, a conversation about the real impact that purpose-driven leaders can have across their organizations and beyond. Whether you're guiding teams through change or reshaping your company's direction, this episode offers ideas worth carrying into your next big decision. Let's get into it.

HOST: John is currently the director of business development at the Centre for Land Conservation, having recently retired as president and CEO of the Nature Conservancy of Canada, NCC. In more than two decades of leadership, John oversaw remarkable growth in NCC's programs, conservation projects, funding, and impact, leading to the conservation of more than 14 million hectares. John is an advocate for growing the community-based private land and conservation movement and creating solutions that will change our trajectory to a nature-positive future for generations to come. Terrific to have you here, John.

Second, we're joined by Wren Montgomery, associate professor here at Ivey Business School within the management and sustainability group. Wren is a prolific researcher-- we will touch on a few of the areas-- so everything from firm environmental communications, has been pivotal in defining greenwashing and its tactics and informing strategies to stop it. As an adept management consultant and senior government policy analyst, she eagerly partners with organizations, entrepreneurs, as well as students passionate about integrating change.

Sean Drygas is the VP of sustainability and strategy as well as performance at RBC, where he helps the bank embed its purpose framework into its strategies for clients, communities, and employees. In his career, he has held several roles focused on increasing environmental sustainability as an organizational practice. And Sean was named to Canada's Clean 50 for 2022, as one of Canada's leaders in sustainability. Sean is also an Ivey alum, having graduated in the early '90s from the Ivey HBA program.

I actually really want to dig in and maybe get a little bit personal here in terms of what drew you into this space. So we're going to go to you, John, first and get your voice into the conversation.

JOHN LOUNDS: I grew up a long time ago. During that time, there were some big environmental problems that were headlines. I mean, there still are today, but back then, DDT, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught on fire, Love Canal with all the terrible chemicals that were causing all sorts of problems. I guess that really gave me impetus to try and-- how can I do good? How can I create a better world here?

I was very good at math and computer science, but I didn't go there. I ended up with the urban and regional planning. I thought, OK, we're going to solve all these problems of the world and figure out how to make that all happen. I always wanted to do more, better, faster, think outside the box, find new creative solutions to things.

But in university, I ended up more on the edge of what was going on rather than the core work of working in a planning office. And in the early 1980s, from an economic point of view, it was a terrible time to graduate with my master's in environmental studies and get a job, especially when inflation was at 17%. Very different times from today, but challenging today as well.

So what did I do? I taught English in Japan for a year and then came back and ended up working with the government of Ontario. I had worked with the government of Ontario on hydro issues, ended up working for the Ontario Ministry of Energy in energy conservation, then the Women's Directorate on pay equity. Then I finally got my real job in government, working for Treasury Board and Management Board, and then left that to work with the Ontario Round Table on Environment and Economy.

Then the job at Ontario Nature-- it was the Federation of Ontario Naturalists-- came up at the time, a nonprofit organization. I worried about it, and then I took the $20,000 pay cut, and I went for it. And it's been the best thing I ever did. It was taking that chance and going forward with a nonprofit organization, and it's worked out very well for me.

HOST: I'm going to bring Wren into the conversation. Let's talk about a little bit of what sparked you to pursue this as a path.

WREN MONTGOMERY: I think John and I might be twins separated at birth. I also taught English in Japan, had some similar career trajectories. My mother was a journalist and a little bit of an activist. And my father was a conservationist, worked in the provincial park system, managing parks, setting up some of our big parks. And so I'm sort of the perfect marriage of the two. [LAUGHS]

I came by a lot of what I do right now, fairly honestly-- took some environmental economics classes at McGill, started dabbling a degree in economics and poli sci, getting my feet wet on the environmental side but also with some of the theory to back things up as well, which was great.

Went off and taught English in Japan, in Kyoto, for a year and then came back, worked in policy for a little bit, worked in the financial industry, actually, as well, trading some fun things as the stock market bubble burst. So that was a great experience.

But yeah, eventually decided to go back to do a PhD. So a little bit later, after a couple of different career trajectories, and it was a great fit. Really loved it in many ways. It allowed me to bring a bunch of different interests together.

But I think the more I dug into what companies were doing, both in the financial industry and then through my research-- and I was somebody, like many of us who are probably on this call, who tried to put my money where my values were and buy green products, fair trade products, and then finding out what was actually going on behind the scenes. And the hypocrisy really bothered me, which is something I'm starting to learn more and more bothers a lot of people. It's not just me.

So I started to dig into that from a research perspective, which was really fun to figure out what was going on. And I was early enough to greenwashing that I was able to really start some of those frameworks, do some of the early definitions, which have really taken off, and things like that. So it's been a fun wave to ride, although I was hoping it would be gone by now, and it isn't. So who knows?

HOST: So, Sean, what got you into this field to begin with?

SEAN DRYGAS: Continuing the theme of teaching English in Japan, that was my first career stop as well. That was right after graduating from Ivey in '92, headed over, intending to go for a year, maybe two, stayed for about five. Came back, joined that tech startup in the video conferencing space, and eventually navigated into corporate strategy work in some larger organizations-- the FedEx and then Maple Leaf Foods.

Then it was while I was at Maple Leaf, just doing your typical corporate strategy how do we sell more bread and that sort of thing, in my personal time, became educated about climate change, in particular, amongst sustainability issues and realized that this had significant impacts for Maple Leaf going forward. The footprint and also the potential impact was large.

And fortunately, there were a couple of others more senior than I was at the time who had the same perspective. And we ended up sort of off the side of our desk, getting a project going to formulate a strategy for sustainability for the company, put out our first report, did our first CDP filing, first carbon accounting, that sort of thing.

During the process of doing that, the research for that strategy talked to a lot of different organizations how they've managed to embed it into their management rhythms, and one of those companies was Bullfrog Power, the renewable energy firm. And that led to an opportunity to make a full-time career in this space. As opposed to splitting my time between corporate strategy and sustainability, moved full-time into it. And so that was where I got into full-time sustainability.

HOST: Fantastic. John, I'm coming to you first here. The question is around purpose-driven leadership. And if it was easy, I think more people would want to pursue it. We're going to talk about maybe some of the challenges that you've sort of faced but you've also seen as others have pursued purpose-driven leadership. But if I could ask you 30 seconds before you dive into your answer, what does purpose leadership mean to you?

JOHN LOUNDS: Well, you have to know where you're going and why and what is it that you are always checking in to make sure that what you're working on is actually leading you to that long trade. And generally, it's a long-term change. It's not a short-term piece. Generally, it's something that you have to focus on. You have to be diligent about it, but you have to also be focused on it every day. Otherwise, you'll lose where you're going pretty quickly.

HOST: And you gotta be deliberate. It's like you can't go to the gym once every three months and expect a result change. [LAUGHS]

JOHN LOUNDS: And the persistence piece, I think, is what leads to success in purpose-driven leadership.

HOST: Great. So let's hear a little bit more about individuals that you've seen. So it is difficult. It does require concerted effort. So what are you seeing in terms of those who are aspiring to purpose-driven leaders maybe have actually demonstrated? What does it mean to be that?

JOHN LOUNDS: Yeah, so my experience is in purpose-driven organizations. The reason why people get involved with Nature Conservancy of Canada or other nonprofits is because they want to change the world. They want to make a better place out of it.

Problem that exists is they're often highly disorganized organizations because you're filled with passionate people. You add to that not having a profit number to work toward, and you get lots of potential outcomes as a result of that.

It becomes-- so that job I spoke to, I took the pay cut for, it was the hardest job I ever had. They had 18 lines of business. There were 75 people on the board. It was a little bit crazy, I have to say. And I learned how bringing organization and business principles and operations to a nonprofit was extremely important in making sure that it actually lived up to its purpose because, otherwise, everything becomes scattered with all the passion.

The people that join-- it's kind of like religion. I once had a guy working for me. And he phoned me up one day. He goes, John. John, John. Have you ever ridden a horse, John? And I thought, what a weird question. And he said, well? I said, yes, I've ridden a horse a couple of times. He goes, John, I am that horse. And I went, OK. [LAUGHS]

And it gave me the rational-- you need to have blinders on people that are working in a nonprofit because everybody has an idea of what a good outcome is to achieve a purpose. But unless you have a way of corralling folks, helping them all move in the same direction, your organization will seem scattered. It won't achieve what you want it to achieve. And that's why you see so many of them put in place a multiyear operational campaign because it helps to focus the energies of everybody on the team. And I found those to be extremely helpful.

HOST: I wrote down "75 people on a board." Oh, boy. That saying, sort of the, how do you create the whole that's greater than the sum of the parts? Even when you have lots of people trying to do lots of important work, it doesn't necessarily immediately mean that you're going to translate into those desired outcomes. So how do you channel the energy? How do you channel the focus? How do you keep things moving forward?

JOHN LOUNDS: And you have so many people that want to be involved. How do you have them be involved but not having 75 people decide what's going on? So basically, the organization evolved, and it evolved from local naturalist clubs. And they gave each local naturalist club a vote on the board, and nobody ever changed it for years.

HOST: That's one big table. So I'm going to go to you next, Wren, in terms of-- actually build on this, is, what does drive people and organizations to make meaningful change, one where we actually see real, tangible results?

WREN MONTGOMERY: And again, John, you're reminding me-- so I've just published, actually today, a paper on greenhushing, which people may have heard about. So companies being sort of quiet about what they're doing. So not talking about their purpose.

But in those interviews, John, somebody said to me-- they were wineries. This was in California. They were doing great work on sustainability. Really purpose-driven, very committed to sustainability, fantastic practices. And we're asking them why they hadn't joined the sustainability label. And he said, well, I'm riding a horse. Why would I come down to a donkey? [LAUGHS] So anyway, I thought that was a fun-- it was a very effective summary of his sort of internal battle about his own purpose versus joining a larger group.

A lot of my work is looking at greenwashing. But what I'm really trying to do with that, and where it kind of loops into the purpose thing, is help the purpose-driven businesses because I see greenwashing as anticompetitive. So if we have consumers out there who want to do the right thing-- and we know from all sorts of surveys that Canadians want to care about climate change, care about their environment, want to support products and businesses that are doing the right thing. But we've got this obfuscation in the market where I can't tell which company's actually doing the right thing because they all have a green package and say they're eco-friendly or clean or whatever it is. So I see it as anticompetitive behavior.

And so, to me, cleaning up the greenwashing or getting that out of the market allows our purpose-driven businesses to shine and to get the value and the credit that they deserve. And of course, it's sometimes expensive, or more expensive to be sustainable or be purpose-driven, so they get that back then in the market. So really, my goal is to support those businesses.

So some of the problems I see coming up in businesses that do go down the greenwashing path-- certainly, we have some that are deliberately trying to fool people or trick them, let's be honest. The vast majority, though, I'd say, it's sort of more accidental. And there are people who are trying to do the right thing, but A, they may not understand how confusing some of their language is to a person walking down the grocery store aisle who doesn't have expertise in the different labels or something like that.

Even more, I'd say, there's sort of a lack of communication across silos in a company. So maybe that the ops person or the people doing the packaging or whatever put something out, the marketing people or the sustainability group are making different claims. And you see these different things happening because they're not talking to each other across the company.

And so I think that's another really important reason to be clear, as John said many times, about what the purpose is of your organization, company, not-for-profit, government-- whatever it is-- university, say that again and again, needs to come from the top because I really do see continually that there's many, many people, or the majority of people, at the bottom who are trying to do the right thing. There's just sort of a mixed messaging. So I don't think purpose-driven is that hard to come by. We just need good leaders to make sure we're getting there.

HOST: Sometimes, you have a big word like "purpose," which has a different meaning to different individuals, and it can feel like, oh my gosh, this is out of reach. This is something that I could never achieve, sort of break it down.

I also wrote down "intent versus impact." And I appreciate your commentary. Well, some organizations are deliberately doing things which would constitute greenwashing. So others might be actually intending to do the best thing and the right thing, but it's not necessarily translating that way. And so how do we take a step back and not assume that everyone is sort of out to get everyone, is education, and here's the impact of what you're doing is having, and maybe we can deconstruct that so that we can actually achieve the impact that you're intending to do?

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Sean, I'm going to come back to you. I think you can provide a really interesting perspective in terms of the corporate lens on all of this. So let's bring your voice back into the conversation.

SEAN DRYGAS: I think I actually build, basically, off of some of what both Wren and John were speaking about. When we look at corporate, we're sure, ultimately, we have to deliver products or services that the clients want to buy, and do it properly. That's the bottom line. You can't compete and survive without that. And that's always boundary.

But within that, I think you find that there are individuals within the company, both at the leadership level and certainly throughout the employee base, for whom putting purpose into their work is important. It may not be exactly the same as it is in not-for-profit world, where often, people have decided they want to make that their full-time calling or vocation and maybe took a pay cut to get there.

But people do want to work for an organization they feel proud of. They want to feel that it has a purpose beyond just making money. And that gets into how you make the business case for it.

With sustainability, in any organization, I think the challenge we've all had over time is that everybody realizes its importance. There's always something more. For a corporate to decide to really focus on purpose, invest resources behind it, there has to be a business case made to say, what is this doing to help us succeed as a business in addition to living the purpose? It's an "and," not an "or." And part of that is you're going to keep the best people.

And to Wren's point on leadership, I've been fortunate in my career to work for a number of senior leaders who are very concerned not only about the very long-term sustainability of the organization but also their own personal impact legacy.

HOST: I'm going to put a question out here, and I want the three of you to think about it-- you can all chip in, or one can grab the mic-- is, I'm inspired walking across campus today. This time of year, there's always a lot of energy as students are returning for the fall term. It takes 30 minutes to go three blocks. And that's just navigating walking. That's not even talking about getting into a car. What would be your recommendation to individuals, you know, maybe they're graduating, or individuals who are in their career and are investigating potential organizations?

Beyond what you see on a website, how do individuals get a pulse for, is this organization purpose-driven in a way that aligns with what my purpose is? So it could be very different from individual to individual or organization to organization. But I'm curious if you have any tips that you've learned along the way. I think there's a lot of people out there, myself included, that would be very interested in having information like that so that when we're having conversations and making recommendations, it's like, here's some questions you can ask, or here's some things that you might want to do as you're fact-checking.

So hopefully, I've drawn out the question long enough that one of the three of you feels comfortable. We'll go Sean, and then we're going to go Wren. [LAUGHS]

SEAN DRYGAS: Yeah, it's actually something that's really timely for me because I've just joined RBC about four and a half months ago. And that was a real question that I had as a new joiner, even though I'm well into my career. How do I get comfortable with whether the organization is really committed to this or not?

And so, for me, part of it was I think I spoke to eight or nine people in the organization who either had first- or second-degree connections with and asked them questions like, do you see it lived out day to day? What kind of resources are being put behind it? What's the governance behind it, and is it robust? That was my take on it. And also maybe just going back and looking at the last few annual reports and sustainability reports and seeing, is there consistency over time in the approach?

HOST: Wren, what are your thoughts on the question?

WREN MONTGOMERY: We actually just did some research on the impacts of greenwashing on job seekers, and we see exactly those sorts of things, Sean. So I always tell them, triangulate-- using a research term-- but look at something from many different angles, as Sean illustrated so beautifully. Look at those annual reports. Talk to a lot of people. Trying to get, is everything aligning? Is there a consistent message, I think, is really important.

Certainly, your connections are wonderful, the people who will tell you the dirt. [LAUGHS] Are there people you know who moved, who left and went somewhere else? Maybe they just got offered a better job. Maybe there was a reason. Maybe it wasn't aligning with their values-- things like that. Certainly, at places like Ivey, we've got great networks of sustainability alumni community and things like that who are going to spill the beans on some of these things, too, especially if they're no longer there or something like that. So yeah, all of those things.

But we do see, in that research we did, job-seekers, if they could tell that a company is not aligned across these things. So we show them what the company is saying and then some fake sustainability reports. It will certainly make them look elsewhere. All sorts of really damaging things to the company so definitely lose employees.

And the employees that they lose the most are ones with a need for cognition. So these are the people that we need for to do analysis, to do-- the really top employees that we're looking for in any knowledge-based work, they're going to be the ones most likely to go elsewhere if they see that lack of alignment. So really important to have those messages aligned.

HOST: Anything you'd like to add, John?

JOHN LOUNDS: What I found, not just organizationally, what's going on, but if I find somebody that I admire and respect and I think I can learn things from, that's where I go. I say I want to work with that person. I want them to show me, teach me, mentor me. It keeps it exciting. It keeps it new and fresh. But you have to think about those people within the organization.

I'll take government as an example. Lots of people work in government. They're just doing their things every day. There's a few people in government that are incredible, incredible people, who are doing fantastic work, and those are the people I seek out if I'm going to go and work someplace.

HOST: Yeah, I sort of pick up on the look inward. Yes, lots of things you can do in terms of reports, conversations, but let's start with ourselves in terms of, what am I looking for? Where am I excelling? What are my gaps? Where do I want to develop, and which organization? And to your point, which leaders will afford that to me?

Let's keep going down the path of leadership. Individual wants to start prioritizing purpose-driven leadership-- or even maybe rephrase that, is, prioritize it even more. So it's not, I'm not doing it today. I'm going to do it tomorrow. Is, I want to be a more purposeful, driven leader.

Let's talk about skills and let's talk about mindset. What are some of the steps I need to take? What are some of the things I need to be thinking about in order to make progress down this purpose-driven leadership path? I'm going to bring you in first, John. John, I'll give you a few moments. I'll go to Wren next, and then we'll bring Sean in for the big finale.

JOHN LOUNDS: I think it goes back to what I just mentioned about knowing yourself. Early on in my career, did I really know myself? I'm not sure. I have learned more and honest about what I'm good at and what I'm not good at. And in order to make any kind of organization work, you have to surround yourself with people who are better at other things that you're not good at, or else you will never succeed as an organization.

You know The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People like it's your funeral. What do you want people to say about you? You want to say, hey, made a lot of money, fantastic, traveled all over the world? [LAUGHS] But what did you do? I think it's thinking through that, and I guess my advice would be to start early on purpose. Don't say, hey, I'm going to do all this stuff, and then I'll figure out my purpose when I'm 65 or whatever.

I just retired, but I called my rewirement years right now. And basically, I have lots of things I can do and work on because I actually am doing the same thing I was always doing. The purposeful work that I was doing, I now have more projects than I could possibly ever do. I'm only doing it part-time, but it's something that's occupying me and giving me great psychic rewards and other rewards as I go on. I think I could probably keep doing it till I'm not on the planet anymore. And that's a great career that never ends, basically.

WREN MONTGOMERY: I keep trying to teach undergrad students because I think our Ivey undergrads are just so inspiring. And they are so driven by this meaning, their values. It seems-- and I think we see that coming out in research-- that even controlling for life stage, everybody was passionate when they were 20 that they actually are more so.

I don't know if that's the state of the world. I think there certainly is some elements there where they realize they have to make things happen. Certainly, in academia, we're always told, after tenure, you can have purpose. So whatever job you're in, do not wait until after tenure.

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One of the things that I find I personally do is I check in with people, whether I'm doing my grocery shopping, or have conversations. I have conversations about what's going on in our local environment when I'm walking my dog and things like that. And it really helps me, I think, speak about what I care about, hear what other people care about, and continually have that checking in, and of course, doing it with colleagues, doing it with these respected people in organizations or mentors. But I don't think it has to be that narrow. I think just touching base with everyday people and having this really broad network.

And then I'm also just a big believer in, when you are making that change, don't try to do it alone. [LAUGHS] It's the thankless work often, but having a really good group of committed fellow, troublemakers, purpose-makers, whatever they are. I mentioned one of my favorite quotes that I read somewhere. I've never been able to find the source again. So I'm sure I'm butchering it and I will not cite it appropriately.

But it sort of equated activism or making change or having purpose-- I think could be any of those-- to thinking of being in a choir. So you do get tired. So have this collective voice trying to make change. Each of us do get tired, need to take a break, need to check in where we are. But the movement continues on, or that change continues on, if you're working with others. And then you can jump back in when you're more energized. And other people can take a little detour or have a break or whatever they need. So I try to always work in those sorts of situations when I can.

HOST: Think, if choir is a community, people are there to hear the collective. It's not the fourth person from the left of the third row, unless they're doing a solo. It's not purpose at work and purpose outside of work.

You talked about walking your dog, right? And a lot of my best moments, where I sort of have a-has are out for a walk or a run or definitely with my dog. You sort of are able to think about things a little bit differently. And I think we start to see a lot more flow between work and life that way.

WREN MONTGOMERY: Yeah. That's so interesting, [? Brian, ?] because I was at Stanford, on sabbatical for the year, writing a book called How to Beat the Greenwashers. It's intended for companies who are trying to do the right thing, competing against greenwashing. But as I wrote that, I was like, this could also be a self-help book because it is talking about that check-in and being honest and being transparent and sort of having a path for change. And I think it's so important to be transparent with ourselves, know where we're at, know, as Jon was saying, our strengths and weaknesses and where we need to improve.

HOST: It's making it feel sort of less daunting to say, hey, I can make some changes, and here are some ways to get going. So, Sean, I skipped over you, so I'm going to come to you now.

SEAN DRYGAS: I love the metaphor that Wren shared about the choir. I think it links really well to, I think, a key point we talked about on our prep call, and think all of us on this experience over time, which is that it's a long game. You can see the societal prioritization of purpose and ability has ebbed and flowed over time as different issues have come to the fore.

And so it takes perseverance. It takes some patience. It takes a long time to see impact. That can be hard personally to navigate that and to keep your energy up and keep your motivation up. And so that sense of community is really, really important. Having a network that you can lean on when that starts to flag is, I think, really critical-- certainly has been in my career and, I think, for the people that I've worked with over the years.

I got into this in about 2007. Really pivoted my career. And so think about what's happened since then. We were in the ascendancy, right? Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth was coming out, and climate change, in particular, was at the top of the charts. Then the global financial crisis hit, and I think sustainability went down to number eight or nine on the priority list. Then it built back up again. We had 2015 and the Paris Agreement and Greta Thunberg really mobilizing young people.

And now we're in a phase where things aren't necessarily, in every country in the world, at least going the way that we'd like to see it. But you've got to keep that long view. And I do think that part of that is having a view of, what's my theory of change? What am I working towards? What do I believe is going to get us there? Keep pushing it one day at a time and not expect instant results because those aren't going to happen. But take the short wins and check in with people regularly to make sure you're all still energized and working in the same direction.

HOST: The lens you brought in, not a solo journey. Yes, there are moments where I need time to myself to self-reflect. But how do we lean on others? How do we go through it? I like the quick wins. So it is a journey. And it's tough if all you're going to do is celebrate once you get to the end. And one could probably argue there is no end to the journey. Making sure you're recognizing milestones along the way.

There's always more insights than I could ever have imagined going in, and I'm always learning something. But what are two tips, really, with the lens of becoming a more purposeful, driven leader myself? So we talked about some here, but what are some a-has that you hope our audience members walk away from?

WREN MONTGOMERY: I think just honesty. I think, at the corporate level, there's so much pressure on that right now for transparency. We see a lot of pushback on hypocrisy. Think audiences, stakeholders react much better if you're honest about needing to make improvements and that's going to take you a while to get there than if you're fooling them. So be honest. Fooling your stakeholders is never a good way to do business.

But I think that really, for me at least, resonates into the personal, too. Just be honest about who you are, what makes you happy, what you want to do in the world, and keep checking back, checking in with yourself, and making sure you're doing it.

HOST: John or Sean, what are some final thoughts from each of you?

JOHN LOUNDS: One piece is, take a chance at the right time, not too late in your career. Take a chance to live where you want to live, and think about that you're going to have to invest time and money in that by lost wages, perhaps, or whatever. The rewards, the satisfaction, the fulfillment of a life well lived is actually-- what was that old Mastercard? It's priceless. And in the end, that's all we all really have.

HOST: Fantastic. Sean, final comments?

SEAN DRYGAS: Yeah, I think that point on finding a great leader to attach yourself to, to help guide your career, is just so important. As we look for how to bring purpose to our careers and our organization, there are many paths. And I think one of the risks is you attach yourself to, you know, I have to go work for this type of organization or that type of organization. But I think, in my experience, whether it's a business, whether it's a not-for-profit, whether it's government, if you've got the right people and the right leadership in place, that's where you're actually going to make a difference and you're going to be doing the right things.

And don't limit your choices too much. In fact, look for ways to drive purpose with the opportunities that you find yourself, realizing you may have to make trade-offs, it may be salary, it may be location, et cetera, to have that impact that you want. But if you're in the right organization with the right leader, I think there's lots of opportunity to have impact.

NARRATOR: If today's conversation got you thinking differently about leadership, we've done our job. To learn more about Ivey programs designed for impact, head to iveyexeced.com. And if this sparked something worth sharing, send it to a colleague or follow us on your favorite social media platform. Every conversation moves further when you pass it on. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.

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