How To Develop Vision

[photo by kevindooley]

Imagine a leader. What makes them different from a follower or a manager?

An easy way to differentiate leadership: leaders provide direction, vision, goals, motivation and cohesion.

Leaders are visionary

Let’s start with a simple definition of leadership. Leadership is vision + followers.

So in plain English we can define a leader as a person with vision who attracts followers to help achieve the goal.

Most leadership training is about how to implement your vision, how to attract followers and bring people onboard your organization or your team.

But where do leaders get vision? It is usually assumed to be preexisting, something internal that claws its way to your brain and won’t let you sleep at night until you accomplish it. We see leaders as driven, passionate and relentless in the pursuit of their goals.

Why else would you want to be a leader but to implement your vision?

“People want to be led, not managed.”

There’s a feeling among casual leadership enthusiasts that leadership is only necessary for those at the top; the CEOs, the founders, the entrepreneurs. All the lower level folks just needed to follow their leader’s guidance.

This is untrue for two reasons. First, lower level managers, in order to be effective, need to develop their leadership skills. Second, more and more frequently individuals are becoming entrepreneurs at least part-time.

And the truth of the matter is, people want to be led, not managed. So it behooves every manager to develop leadership skills.

Additionally, no one need be only a leader or only a follower. We are, each of us, both leaders to some and followers to others. Just as it’s true we are all providers as well as consumers of goods and services in the economy.

Attaining vision

So if each of us is going to be a leader we each need to develop vision.

What is vision? Vision is creativity + critical thinking.

A vision is a particular way of seeing the world. It says, the world would be better off if things were the way I envision them instead of the way things are.

This implies two features of vision: it’s a change from the current state of affairs, and it encompasses a worldview.

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” Scott Adams

It takes creativity to see the world differently from the way it is right now. But creativity is not hard, it’s just a different, unique way of looking at the world.

There’s something about the way each of us sees the world which is unique to us and makes us better able to deal with a particular problem than others. Ask yourself what that is? What is it you’re particularly good at?

You may believe animals shouldn’t be harmed for any reason. You might think we can get everything we need for food, clothing and chemical testing from other sources; that we no longer need to rely on killing or injuring animals.

Don’t ask yourself at this point if such a position is right or wrong. Accept this as a perspective that is unique. Then ask yourself, what problem does this worldview solve?

Unique worldviews manifest themselves as solutions to problems

The answer may be: If, as a society, we abolished animal cruelty, people would not have to live with the guilt and shame of causing unnecessary harm to animals.

This is just one example; your uniqueness need not be a radical change. Consider the fairly common situation of the artist.

Some people’s unique worldview is the ability to create visual art. Again, ask the question, what problem does this solve?

The answer may be that it compensates for the lack of physical beauty around us or for a lack of awareness of the physical beauty around us.

“What is compelling about your vision?”

Whatever it is you think people should change, it’s probably a result of your unique worldview. Figure out what it is that’s unique about your perspective.

Now ask yourself, what is compelling about my vision?

When an artist feels her art is unique and solves an existing problem, it is easy to feel passionate about it. The world needs to see this art because the world is a better place with it than without it.

The animal rights activist’s vision is compelling because deep down we feel bad about hurting animals if it’s unnecessary.

After applying our creativity and determining what is unique and compelling about our worldview, we need to start thinking critically. This is in many ways the more difficult part because, if we have not practiced it previously, critical thinking can feel overwhelming.

Our worldview

None of us develop a holistic worldview spontaneously; it comes in bits and parts. We see our parents doing things, we learn about the world in school and church, we find out things from our friends.

Sometimes these disparate notions work only in specific, bounded instances. When we try to bring them together there are contradictions.

When developing a vision you need to consider how your worldview fits together in a disciplined way before you run off to recruit a bunch of followers. The type of person who has a lot of unique, creative ideas but doesn’t scrutinize them well is what we call a flake.

A flake may have a distinct worldview, and it may be compelling if enthusiastically presented (which it usually is), but they don’t have many followers because when their ideas are subjected to scrutiny, as they inevitably will be, the ideas don’t hold together.

“You don’t have to show your idea is feasible, just that it’s congruent.”

In order to be taken seriously you need to have thought through your worldview in a way that allows it to be robust under pressure. You need to think about it critically.

Ask the question, does your worldview fit together easily or does it contradict itself at times? This is what you need to determine.

Remember your aim in being critical is not to prove it can be done but merely to avoid inherent contradictions. You don’t have to show that your idea is feasible, just that, if implemented according to your vision, it would be congruent with the rest of your worldview.

The process of developing vision is the most overlooked aspect of becoming a leader. If you master the steps I’ve outlined here you’ll be miles ahead of your peers who are focusing only on how to attract followers.

Followers want to follow those with vision. And now you know how to get it.