Vision
Vision is a key attribute of a successful leader, especially one who leads at a senior level. All great leaders possess two things: they know where they are going, and they can persuade others to follow.
Vision unifies your people around a common goal, and helps making decision making easier. People don’t necessarily follow the vision itself. They follow a leader who sets the vision and communicates it effectively to everyone in the team. There must be a level of trust in the competence of a leader for people to step out and follow the leader, especially in a time of uncertainty or change.
So why is vision so important?
An ancient proverb says “Without a vision, the people perish”.
Without a clear vision, people become aimless. They will not know where to focus their energies to accomplish the goal, most likely because the goals are not clear. When a crisis hits, this lack of vision is exacerbated.
If you have been following the activities of Twitter in the last few weeks, we can see writ large the effect on an organisation when a new leader steps in and casts a very new vision! Clearly not everyone likes the new vision; but can Twitter afford to keep doing what they were doing, given Elon Musk has dropped US$44 Billion dollars to buy the company, and they haven’t turned a profit since 2019?
Every successful leader understands that people see what they are prepared to see.
People “see” at three different levels:
Perception – they see what is “now” with eyes of reality.
Probability – they see what is likely to happen next with eyes of probability.
Possibility – they see what can be in the future with eyes of vision.
As a leader, if you want your team to lift their vision from their own reality to the vision you are putting forward, you need to ask these questions:
What do others see?
Why do they see it that way?
How can I help them change their perception?
Clearly Elon Musk is a visionary in the tech space, given what he has achieved with Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Co and other companies; however, it is touch and go whether Elon will crash or crash through and see his vision for Twitter become a reality.
Time will tell!
David Reeson, Managing Director - Upvisory Pty Ltd
M: 0423 657 968 | E: david@upvisory.com.au