[...] So, meaning has these two components—a component emphasizing the ability of individuals to engage in action that is directly connected to their own ideals, and a social component, where the pursuit of those ideals occurs in the context of enduring communal relationships.

Our proposal then is to look at how a leader's choices about vision and design impact on these two dimensions of meaning. We expect that the meaningfulness of work will be strongly impacted by:

1. The leader's willingness to uphold organizational values especially when there is some perceived economic cost to doing so. (If values are violated when there is a perceived benefit in doing so, they are little more than guidelines and thus likely to be the object of suspicion and derision.)
   
2. The leader's willingness to make sure (through design and training) that each individual's positional assignments fit their conception of self and their aspirations.
   
3. The leader's willingness to commit her own time and organizational resources to ensuring that each individual understand how his or her own actions link up to the larger organization's purpose.
   
4. The time and attention that goes into hiring and retaining those individuals who derive personal meaning from the organization's values and purpose.