How’s Your Vision?
David Freund, Chief Leadership Officer

I am sure you have heard me say, “people buy into the leader before they buy into the vision,” and I stand by that statement. The problem is, too many aspiring leaders think they can stay in the phase of creating buy-in and never do the hard work of fine-tuning and then communicating the vision. They are affable people who connect with each person on their team and will get high marks on a 360 assessment. The problem is that their team or organization is stuck, and over time, the best people will leave because of a lack of vision. Let’s take a look at why vision is so important.

Vision Unites – Vision gives the team a reason to come together. A need or calling that people can wake up and pursue—something beyond profits. Now, I didn’t say profits aren’t important; they are. Without them, we won’t be in business, but profits are a metric we need to track, not the reason our teams come together. Vision is what our teams rally around.

Vision Provides a Center for Leadership – Leaders and their teams can be easily distracted by competing needs. It might be a crisis or even an opportunity. Vision keeps them focused on why they are engaged in a particular project or cause. It is the reference point that can always point to true north. All decisions are balanced against the vision, and this allows for quicker and better decision-making.

Vision Should Dominate our Inner Conversation – It has been said that vision leaks. Since it leaks, you can’t over-communicate vision. It needs to be everywhere in your organization, and there can’t be any doubt about what the vision is. Leaders need to use various methods to communicate the vision, so it dominates the inner conversations of all involved.

Vision Inspires Greatness – A compelling vision is inspirational and is why it’s more important than profits. A compelling vision inspires the team to reach far beyond their potential and achieve things they never thought possible. When your team is striving for greatness, the profits will come.

Vision Attracts – Are you having trouble attracting employees to your organization? Are you having problems keeping your best people? It just might be a vision question. A compelling vision will attract those who want to excel. Those who want to grow and achieve great things. Those who want their life to matter.

Remember the old proverb, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

If you would like to hear how you can apply these five points in your leadership, please join Marisa Norcross and me for Episode 219 of The Next Page podcast.

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