Leaders must set a direction, then concentrate everyone’s attention on it.
So far we have illustrated the impact of bad leadership, and underlined two keywords that business leaders should remember and respect: awareness and judgement. This month we explore the importance of setting a clear vision and inspiring your people to pursue it.
Influential leadership author, Warren Bennis, asserts that it is crucial for business leaders to set a direction, and “concentrate the attention of everyone in the organisation on it”. This involves defining a vision for the future of your business that is clear and compelling enough for your people to follow.
Defining your vision
Establishing a clear company vision helps to ensure your business goes in the direction you want it to. It gives focus to management, employees, suppliers, collaborators, and even customers. In essence, it defines a roadmap for where your business and its people are heading. So how can you begin to define your vision?
Strong awareness helps. It pays to know what is going on inside and outside of your organisation, and have access to strong information and intelligence. This means using management, employees and other sources to inform and guide your thinking. Such awareness allows you to make well-judged, forward-thinking decisions. But while others can inform and guide, they should not direct or dictate your vision. As a leader it is your job to look into the unknown and set a direction for the future as you see it.
Upon sound intelligence you can build an educated view of the future. According to Bennis, a vision needs to provide people with a “bridge to the future”. In the first instance this means defining where you want to be one, three, five, or ten years from now. From these points, leaders must ‘reverse engineer’ to provide specific, practical and achievable plans which detail the key steps required to realise the vision. Sometimes referred to as ‘futurecasting’, the process of visualising and road-mapping the future is an important leadership role.
Part story, part plan
Bennis stresses the importance of “giving meaning” to a vision “through communication”. BusinessWeek adds that there should be four components to a vision: “A compelling story, an image, it must be achievable, and it has to be forward-looking.” A vision could be described as part story, part plan. The story must be clear, compelling and easy to communicate, while the plan provides the specifics required to make it happen.
Communication might begin with impassioned speeches, but be sure to follow with practical steps which aim to turn vision into reality; such as building specific goals into management, employee or supplier responsibilities, or conducting regular management meetings and monitoring to ensure your vision is rigorously pursued. More generally, look for opportunities to constantly ‘give meaning’ to your vision through strong communication and management. Tell your story of the future, then inspire, compel and enable others to follow your lead.
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