“Good leaders have vision and inspire others to help them turn vision into reality. Great leaders have vision, share vision, and inspire others to create their own.” ― Roy Bennett
Welcome back!
Thank you all for joining me every week to grow in your strategic communication skills and knowledge. As we continue onward our audience continues to grow, and I am so excited to have each of you here! This week, I have been studying the importance of vision when serving in any management or other type of leadership role. Many leaders with a vision for their professional careers and businesses are referred to as visionaries.
Before we begin, let's discuss who a visionary is...
According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a visionary is "one having unusual foresight and imagination; one whose ideas or projects are impractical." Many people believe that visionary leaders must be in upper management positions within a company; however, this definition proves that anyone with a wide imagination that is willing to challenge the status quo can be defined as a visionary.
Personally, I believe that inside of all of us is the ability to become a visionary leader to some degree! Maybe I am a visionary in Community College Recruiting... Maybe you are a visionary in vehicle or aircraft mechanics… Either way, if any one of us chooses to strive for an idea that seems impractical to others—we are visionaries.
A few famous visionaries that you may know of are:
Martin Luther King Jr. - Civil Rights Activist
Henry Ford - Ford Motor Company; First Assembly Line
John Rockefeller - Standard Oil
Thomas Eddison - Light Bulb and Electricity
Sam Walton - CEO of Walmart
Mark Zuckerberg - Creator of Facebook
While these people are all well-known now, there was a time when they were more than likely mocked and left behind because they had a vision of doing something that had never been done before; however, we still benefit from each of their contributions to the world daily.
I don't know about you all, but I sometimes find myself struggling to create a vision for my life. As a high school senior, I would easily become overwhelmed when discussing my future with the hundreds of people who would ask me what my plans were after graduation. Still to this day, I often find myself in a similar predicament when some of my mother's friends ask me when I am going to finally "meet a man and settle down."
When studying this idea of visionary leadership, I quickly realized that I have been thinking of vision wrong. Instead of allowing myself to dream and have a vision behind my leadership skills, I have been strictly on a mission to go from one goal to the next. Leading for me has been about trying my hard to make people complete tasks to accomplish a goal—I never truly grasped the idea of sharing a vision with followers to help them become a part of the vision.
With that being said, I believe that vision in leadership is extremely important.
Why is Visionary Leadership Important?
As I was studying the importance of visionary leadership, I found a blog called Take It Personel-ly that intrigued me. In this blog, Chantal Bechervaise very clearly lists five reasons why vision is important in leadership:
1. Vision shows us where we are headed.
Without vision, we do not know what goals we are trying to achieve. If we do not set smart goals, we may find ourselves wandering around aimlessly just to pass time. Vision helps us to understand where we are so we can know where we want to end up. It is important to know where we are headed!
2. Vision provides motivation and inspires us to keep ongoing.
When we are discouraged because life isn't turning out the way we thought it should, vision allows us to see a bigger picture. Vision is what gives us the strength to keep moving!
3. Vision helps to keep us moving forward and move through obstacles.
Vision serves as a reminder of better days when times get hard. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, there were many days where we wanted to give up, myself included. I did not always see a point to becoming so isolated, but so many people had a vision that we would be reconnected soon so they kept pushing forward and now we are almost on the other side of a Global Pandemic.
4. Vision provides focus.
Staying focused on the overall task at hand can be so difficult in our plugged-in society. We tend to overlook the right now and grasp for tomorrow; however, vision provides a way for us to focus on what we must do in order to achieve our dreams.
5. Vision gives us meaning and purpose to what we do.
If you are anything like me, you want to make a measurable difference. Establishing that you have a vision allows us all to find meaning and purpose in our everyday tasks.
I agree with Bechervaise's five reasons why vision is important, but I also have one more reason that I believe really contributes to the overall success of a visionary leader:
6. Vision creates a sense of purpose in both the leader and follower.
Many leaders and followers alike struggle to really buy in to something they do not understand. Creating and leading with vision allows your followers to understand the purpose behind the belief, product, or idea. It allows people to really understand what the goal is and it helps them find purpose in helping make the vision a reality!
I plan to become a better leader by searching for vision in everything I do. I plan to be intentional in making sure to share the vision with the people that walk beside me on a day-to-day basis. I also hope to one day inspire others to share the vision of their hearts with others as well.
Are you still searching for your vision? That's okay! Start seeking "Why?" you are working to accomplish your goals!
References:
Bechervaise, C. (2019, May 23). 5 reasons WHY vision is important in leadership. Retrieved
April 19, 2021, from https://takeitpersonelly.com/2013/10/14/5-reasons-why-vision-is-
important-in-
leadership/#:~:text=1)%20Vision%20shows%20us%20where,leader%20prepare%20for%20th
e%20future
Cardona P., Rey C., Craig N. (2019) Purpose-driven Leadership. In: Rey C., Bastons M., Sotok P. (eds) Purpose-driven Organizations. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17674-7_5
Visionaries. (n.d.). Retrieved April 19, 2021, from https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/visionaries
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