Concession leads to sense of purpose (3)
I believe the answer is:
sop
'concession' is the definition.
(sop is a kind of concession)
'leads to sense of purpose' is the wordplay.
'leads to' indicates taking the first letters.
The first letters of 'sense of purpose' is 'SOP'.
(Other definitions for sop that I've seen before include "usual way of doing things, initially" , "Concession of philosophy" , "Appeasing gift" , "Something of no great value given to appease" , "A concession or bribe, once offered to Cerberus" .)