Leading with Intention | An Interview with Dustin Peterson
Leading Saints Podcast
Leading Saints
4.8 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 9 May 2026
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dustin Peterson is the founder and president of Proof Leadership Group, a leadership consultancy that works with organizations to train leaders and help develop their company culture. He is also an author and recently published his fourth book, Meant for More: Waking Up to the Life You Were Sent to Live. He currently serves as the stake president in the Friendswood Texas Stake and has served as a seminary teacher, branch president, stake presidency counselor, and counselor in the Texas Houston South Mission. He lives in Houston with his wife and four children and loves bacon and Dallas sports teams.
Links
Meant for More: Waking Up to the Life You Were Sent to Live
When Leaders Accidentally Limit Their Effectiveness | An Interview with Dustin Peterson
Clarifying Purpose to Guide Your Calling, Work, & Family Life | An Interview with Dustin Peterson
Leading with Your God-Given Talents | An Interview with Dustin Peterson
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Transcript available with the video in the Zion Lab community
Highlights
The conversation centers on the importance of purpose in leadership and personal development.
Key Insights
- Purpose as Motivation: Purpose serves as a powerful source of motivation, helping individuals overcome challenges and find fulfillment in their roles, whether formal or informal.
- Crucibles of Experience: Personal trials and challenges often reveal one’s purpose. Reflecting on difficult experiences can lead to insights about how to serve others and make a positive impact.
- The Importance of “Why”: Understanding the deeper reasons behind actions and assignments is crucial for effective leadership. Leaders should help others grasp the “why” behind their responsibilities to foster engagement and commitment.
- Simplicity in Purpose Statements: Effective purpose statements should be short, bold, and idealistic, guiding individuals toward meaningful goals without being overly complex.
- Individual Purpose: Each person has a unique purpose that can be discovered through reflection on past experiences and aspirations for the future.
Leadership Applications
- Fostering a Purpose-Driven Culture: Latter-day Saint leaders can create an environment where members feel empowered to explore their individual purposes, encouraging them to share their experiences and insights.
- Utilizing Reflection Exercises: Leaders can implement activities like journey mapping to help individuals identify their highs and lows, facilitating discussions that uncover personal purposes and motivations.
- Encouraging Open Dialogue: By prioritizing conversations about purpose and the “why” behind church activities, leaders can enhance engagement and inspire members to take meaningful action in their callings.
00:04:14 – Overview of Meant for More Book
00:05:08 – The Importance of Purpose in Leadership
00:10:07 – Purpose vs. Motivation in Leadership
00:12:13 – Understanding the Why Behind Ministering
00:15:14 – The Role of Purpose in Church Leadership
00:18:23 – Finding Personal Purpose Beyond Formal Roles
00:20:09 – The Three Components of Purpose
00:25:05 – The Impact of Crucibles on Purpose
00:30:07 – Creating a Purpose Statement for a Stake
00:34:51 – The Importance of a Rallying Point in Leadership
00:38:07 – Finding Purpose Outside of Formal Leadership
00:40:39 – Activity: Creating a Journey Map for Purpose
00:42:24 – Conclusion and Reflection on Growth Through Crucibles
The award-winning Leading Saints Podcast is one of the top independent Latter-day Saints podcasts as part of nonprofit Leading Saints’ mission to help Latter-day Saints be better prepared to lead. Find Leadership Tools, Courses, and Community for Latter-day Saint leaders in the Zion Lab community. Learn more and listen to any of the past episodes for free at LeadingSaints.org.
Past guests include Emily Belle Freeman, David Butler, Hank Smith, John Bytheway, Reyna and Elena Aburto, Liz Wiseman, Stephen M. R. Covey, Benjamin Hardy, Elder Alvin F. Meredith III, Julie Beck, Brad Wilcox, Jody Moore, Tony Overbay, John H. Groberg, Elaine Dalton, Tad R. Callister, Lynn G. Robbins, J. Devn Cornish, Bonnie Oscarson, Dennis B. Neuenschwander, Kirby Heyborne, Taysom Hill, Coaches Jennifer Rockwood and Brandon Doman, Anthony Sweat, John Hilton III, Barbara Morgan Gardner, Blair Hodges, Whitney Johnson, Ryan Gottfredson, Greg McKeown, Ganel-Lyn Condie, Michael Goodman, Wendy Ulrich, Richard Ostler, and many more in over 800 episodes.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey everyone, you probably don't know this, but leading saints is not just a podcast. I know in the past we've been known as a podcast, but now leading saints is an online platform, an online community that we call a Zion Lab, because we are focused on not just preparing leaders to be better prepared to lead, but we want to help everybody, regardless of their |
| 0:20.9 | church calling, to build Zion. And Zion Lab is the place to, it's the laboratory of Zion, if you |
| 0:26.8 | will, to step into, share your ideas, best practices, what are you doing in a specific calling? |
| 0:31.9 | What are you doing outside of a calling? Where do you feel inspired? What are other people doing? |
| 0:36.1 | And it is becoming such a dynamic, |
| 0:38.3 | phenomenal community. And there's an AI bot in there that you can ask questions to. And it will |
| 0:43.1 | scour the archives of the Leading Saints. What has it been? Since 2010, we've been creating content. |
| 0:49.3 | It will scour those archives and give you a specific answer to the content that you're looking for. So come join us over at |
| 0:56.4 | Zion Lab, which you can find at leadingsaints.org slash Zion. So before we launch into this |
| 1:05.0 | podcast episode, maybe you are brand new to leading saints and you're wondering, okay, what is this? |
| 1:10.6 | Why is there this platform |
| 1:11.7 | talking about all things church leadership? Yeah, that's what we do at leading saints. We are a |
| 1:15.7 | non-profit organization dedicated to helping Latter-day Saints be better prepared to lead. And |
| 1:20.6 | that may be in a formal leadership role or it may just be as a Zion builder. How can I just |
| 1:25.1 | contribute more? How can I influence the culture of my |
| 1:28.2 | ward or my community in a positive way, even though I don't have a formal role? Or maybe there |
| 1:32.9 | are those in a more formal role and they just want to understand how they can best execute their |
| 1:37.5 | responsibilities in a way that will benefit the ward and keep people coming back and just bless |
| 1:42.7 | the lives in general. So that's what we do at Leading Saints. |
| 1:45.6 | We're the go-to platform where we explore all these things, sharing best practices, |
| 1:49.9 | ideas, thoughts, what you've tried, what's worked, what hasn't worked. |
| 1:53.2 | So we welcome you to Leading Saints. |
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