All great leaders possess two things: they know where they are going, and they are able to persuade others to follow. The secret to their success is vision. It is recommended that you also create a personal vision to help guide your life.
With vision, a leader’s passion is felt among his or her followers. Others share the vision and want to join in the effort to achieve it. It’s the vision that makes them willing to give their time and energy. They want to accomplish the same goal. Without vision, people get tired and lose focus. Followers begin to look for another leader, and consequently, nothing happens. A vision is necessary to ensure that the purpose of a leader’s work is clear to everyone. The vision becomes the rallying call of an organization, cause, or movement.
A vision describes the future direction of an organization, cause, or movement. It must be greater than the individual person who creates it. Its accomplishments must be the result of others bringing their own resources to the effort. The successful leader is always looking for others to make his or her vision a reality. If he or she is not able to articulate a clear vision to others and inspire them to join her, he or she is simply a visionary person as opposed to a leader with a vision.
The vision that guides large and small organizations, causes, or movements is like a beacon that shines through all the changes that inevitably occur. Visions need to be captured and recorded in a vision statement, so that followers can refer back to them, reminding themselves who they are and where they are going.
Some visions are brief statements, others are full-page documents, and still others might be created in bullet form. As long as the statement captures the core elements of the vision and speaks to each follower, the format doesn’t matter.
There is a good chance that as the journey toward a vision progresses, the vision statement might need some adjustment. Make certain that any changes are agreed to, recorded in the vision statement, and distributed to all who are affected.
By having a vision and clearly communicating it to others, leaders are able to attract committed and energized people. These people become the followers. The vision creates meaning in the followers’ lives, establishes a standard of excellence, and bridges the present and the future.
It is critical to note that people do not follow a dream – they follow the leader who has that dream and also has the ability to communicate it effectively. Vision in the beginning will make a leader. But for the vision to grow and gather followers, the leader must take responsibility for it.
Leaders must let their followers see how much they care before the followers will understand the vision. Followers must ‘buy into’ the leader before they ‘buy into’ the leader’s vision. In order to allow followers to see how much their leader cares, the leader must cultivate trust among others. Leaders must understand their followers’ hopes and dreams and build the bridge between their vision and their followers’ needs and goals.