Working for the Sake of Work or to Create Value?
After a short break I’m back with a topic that every leader should have on their agenda for the new year.
Being punctual at the workplace—whether on-site or remote—starting the day with structure and efficiently completing tasks is standard in today’s working world. Yet one of the most difficult leadership challenges lies deeper. Many employees feel a psychological duty to “work efficiently because I’m paid to,” but efficiency does not automatically create value.
Management thinker Peter Drucker put it sharply: “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.” The point is not just to work efficiently but to ensure that the work itself truly adds value. Leaders must break through the mindset that mere diligence equals contribution.
Value at the Center
A leader’s key role is to make sure every activity is measured by the value it creates for the organization. Otherwise, tasks tend to dominate simply for their own sake. Leaders need to help employees clearly see how their work connects to company value creation and strategic goals.
One effective tool is to ask focused questions that guide team members toward value-adding activities. Organizational strategy and its defined priorities form the foundation for this conversation.
Features vs. Benefits
A helpful way to distinguish busywork from value-creating work comes from sales training: the difference between product features and benefits.
Take a coffee spoon as an example. Its features are clear—about 15 cm long, stainless steel, oval tip. But its benefits explain its real value: it lets you eat a soft-boiled egg neatly or measure sugar precisely for coffee.
Similarly, employees may describe their tasks precisely without clarifying why those tasks matter. True value lies in the benefit, not the list of features.
Why Some Work Only for Work’s Sake
People are drawn to low-value activities for many reasons:
- Comfort in routine and predictability.
- The feeling of being indispensable simply by staying busy.
- Satisfaction from checking off tasks for the sake of efficiency.
- Viewing work only as a means of income, not as purposeful contribution.
But resources should be allocated only to activities that clearly create value. Anything else should remain a side effect, never the main driver.
The Leader’s Responsibility
It is a leader’s job to question activities critically, realign them with company goals, or discontinue them if necessary. Leaders must show each employee how their efforts directly advance the organization’s mission and impact.
Consider an employee who loves creating detailed reports and statistics that nobody reads or acts on. This is classic “work for work’s sake,” and it is the leader’s responsibility to redirect or end such tasks.
In “The Hero’s Journey of a Leader” I share practical methods to make the value of work visible and to connect every role to the company’s greater purpose. By keeping value creation—not sheer busyness—at the heart of daily operations, leaders help teams achieve meaningful and measurable results.