Vision and Trust

Regional Leadership Forum (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I ran across this quote yesterday:

 

The Essence of Leadership

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. It’s got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.

- Theodore Hesburgh

Where there is no vision, the people perish.  - Proverbs 29:18

The quote caused me to pause and consider the role of vision in leadership once again.  A close friend and fellow leader of mine often brings up the important point of being able to articulate a clear vision.  I truly understand this importance.  One of my questions though is who should be the one(s) to cast the vision?  I have seen leaders who as an individual define a vision for whatever organization they are leading, then articulate it and the organization members are expected to work towards the manifestation of the vision.  I have also have seen leaders who gather key leaders within the organization and as a team they define the organization’s vision and then champion that vision to the members.  In both cases, I have seen success and failure.  I believe that which approach to vision casting is taken depends on the style of the leader.

 

However, if the success rate is not strongly tied to one approach over the other, that leads me to think that there must be other elements involved in the success.  I think that one of the key element for success of vision manifestation is trust.  Whether the vision is cast and articulated by one chief leader or by a team of leaders, if the members of the organization does not have trust in the vision caste

 

, the success is almost impossible.  This seems to be true in all regards to leaders.  If a leader(s) does not have the trust of those whom he/she/they are trying to lead, there is very little chance they will see success in almost any area of their leadership.

 

So while I agree with the importance of the vision for the future of the organization.  I would place alongside the vision the importance of generating trust in the leadership.

 

 

Related articles

• Where Are We Going? (learnactshare.com)
• Leadership Audit Checklist-Leaders Leave Legacies-4 Areas To Audit Your Leadership Legacy (aeschlapia.wordpress.com)
• What Leading With Vision Really Means (fastcompany.com)

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