A third of workers believe their jobs are meaningless, and the disconnection between individual effort and organizational outcomes costs firms $125 to $190 billion a year in lost productivity and turnover. William Forster Lloyd named the pattern in 1833 as the Tragedy of the Commons. No leader can eliminate it, but every leader can narrow it, through mission clarity, compelling vision, identifiable contribution, and the systems that tie each person's work to the firm's outcom

Every founder has a story about necessity forcing genius. The stories obscure the math: failures outnumber successes two to one. New research from Dencker, Bacq, Gruber, and Haas in the January 2021 Academy of Management Review reframes necessity as part of a motivational continuum, not a binary with opportunity. Basic needs, psychological needs, and self-fulfillment each demand a different focus. The process stays the same. The purpose changes. Leaders get to choose which.

Leaders spend enormous energy on mission, vision, and values, and then wonder why their employees still feel disconnected from the work. The missing link is relationships. Research shows that meaningful work depends less on what leaders say about it and more on the social networks surrounding employees while they do it. In a post-proximity world, great leaders have to build those networks on purpose. Chance encounters are no longer going to do the job for them.