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Leadership Skill: The Vision Thing
By harveyrobbins | September 23, 2007
I’ve got some good news and some bad. The bad news is that we’re lost. The good news is that we’re making great time.
The point of this old saw is that team talent, efficiency, intelligence, and clout are pretty useless unless the team has some clue where it is going and how it is to contribute to the organization’s overall strategy for success.
We’re talking about vision here, one of the most misunderstood and misapplied ideas making the rounds now. Vision is not a “vision statement”. It is not something created in hindsight, with an eye toward external consumption. It is not something you pay consultants $450 an hour to create for you at a weekend retreat by a warm fireplace and cash bar. It is not printed in bronze ink on a report to shareholders or in a guarantee to customers. It is not really words at all. It is a burning thought, and it exists solely in the heads (and hearts) of the team.
The vision is the thing the team exists to do; defined in ambitious form. It is the thing that leadership makes happen. Without team vision, there is no point to a team.
Vision begins at the highest level, setting the course for the enterprise as a whole. With the help of leadership it trickles down, uniting the subunits of the enterprise, helping them figure out their role in the bigger picture.
The commonest vision problem teams have is one that is fundamentally beyond their control: the team has a vision, but the enterprise doesn’t. It is a sad thing, but no amount of ambition, intelligence, and hard work at the trench level can succeed if the vision of the organization as a whole is a drag. “Returning the greatest possible return on investment to our shareholders” is the best-known offender.
Vision is the offspring of hunger. Companies that have succeeded in the past and had a vision in the past may think the old vision is still in effect. But in many cases it is gone, rubbed clean by the passage of time, complacency in high places, and the high-gloss buffing of corporate communication types.
It is not until a company hits hard times (like now), some rude awakening in the marketplace, that it learns it must have a clue why it is in business. This is a perilous moment. Companies in peril, sensing that they need to stand for something, have a tendency to try to stand for a lot of different things in rapid succession. The resulting wheel-spinning, drum-beating, and horn-blowing can be devastating to that organization’s teams. They are like fish in a blender, doing their best against woeful odds.
Having a clearly communicated vision, on the other hand, allows employees and team members to measure their values and behaviors against a company standard. If there is a value clash, people are free to modify their values or leave. Teams may be better off if some people leave - not that they are deadwood, but because their resistance to the vision of the team had a dragging effect on productivity and morale.
Topics: Leadership Skill |
September 24th, 2007 at 6:25 am
The vison that proves with other persons to win is a real leader
who bothers the sense of subordinate too”
the skill which provides you to grow in the industry with your subordinate needs a real knowledge regarding the personal touch ”’
it is incredible that i got some tips after going through your context