Imagine a long weekend in New York. You hail a cab at the airport, climb in, and tell the driver, “Okay, let’s go!”
You will go somewhere. Without a destination, though, you will burn time and money. Not knowing where you want to spend the weekend is a good way to ruin the trip.
Leading a team is like taking a group on a trip. The work is productive when you map the route and tell people where they are headed. One of the hardest parts of leadership is setting a compelling vision. Some leaders set none at all—let alone one people want to follow.
Without vision, a team can wander. Like that cab ride, they use up time and money with no clear direction.
Many of the leaders I work with are excellent at getting the job done. That is often why they were promoted. They deliver. Even so, some of them still overlook a clear, compelling vision.
Your team may be busy answering email and sitting in meetings. Are they contributing to the bottom line? Are they meeting the organization’s goals? Are they pulled forward by the vision? Are they motivated to make a difference?
A well-known example comes from the U.S. space program. In October 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1. Many Americans were shaken—not because Sputnik was a spy satellite (it was not), but because it showed Soviet rocket power and raised fears about missiles and national prestige. In 1958, President Eisenhower signed the law that created NASA. By the time his term ended in January 1961, NASA had real work underway, including Project Mercury. What it did not yet have was a single, public goal the whole country could recite.
President Kennedy set out to change that. After Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space in April 1961, Kennedy went to Congress in May and named a destination: land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth before the decade was out.
That was the vision people remembered.
With a goal that clear, the country put education, funding, and talent behind it. On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong took “one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Want a team that is motivated, focused, and less frantic with its time? State the vision.
Use these prompts to shape one that is easy to understand and worth following:
- Purpose. What is this team for?
- Characters. Who are your customers? Whom do you work with every day?
- Problem. What are you trying to solve?
- Solution. How will you solve it?
- Change. What will be different because this team exists?
- Emotion. What do you feel as you answer each question? It is not silly. People follow a vision they can feel, not only one they can diagram.
- The point. Word it so a new hire could repeat it in one breath.
Do that, and you waste less time and money. The team has a destination. Your leadership has a route.
Tell me how the new vision lands—or where it is still hard. That helps both of us learn.