Vision and Leadership: What Is Vision in Leadership?

Having a clear vision is one of the most important aspects of being an effective leader, but what is vision in leadership?

As a leader, it’s your job to envision your organization in the future, which can help you create a culture that has a set of defined goals and objectives that can guide them toward that future. This is one of the core leadership qualities, and a lack of vision in leadership can have significant consequences on the success of an organization.

In our guide below, we’ll walk through the importance of vision in leadership. Keep reading to learn more about vision and leadership and why having foresight is important for your organization.

• What Is Vision in Leadership?
• Why Is Vision in Leadership Important?
• What Are the Consequences of a Lack of Vision in Leadership?
• Why Do Leaders Fail to Develop a Vision?
• How Can Leaders Create a Vision?
• Key Takeaways: Avoiding a Lack of Vision in Leadership

What Is Vision in Leadership?

Vision in leadership is the ability to see a future for your organization. Every organization has long-term goals, but those goals start with the visions of leaders and the direction they want to see their organizations grow.

Leaders who have a vision understand what the future of the organization should be, which helps them set clear objectives and build a company culture that supports those long-term goals. Having a vision in leadership can be one of the biggest leadership challenges, but it’s an essential part of moving your organization forward.

A leader’s vision should align with their organization’s mission and values, as they are foundational principles that define their purpose. With these in mind, leaders can ensure their vision’s core values align with that of their organization.

Why Is Vision in Leadership Important?

Vision in leadership is important because it gives an organization something to work toward. If you have a vision for your organization in the next 5 or 10 years, you can set goals that help your vision become a reality over the course of several years. Here are some of the reasons vision in leadership is so crucial.

1. Inspiration

Leading in challenging times can be difficult, but having a vision for your organization gives you direction and paints a picture of what success looks like. Your vision helps inspire your team members, which leads to increased productivity that helps your organization achieve long-term goals. A lack of vision in leadership can leave team members feeling uninspired.

2. Guidance

Vision and leadership also play an essential role in guiding your team. Good leaders need good decision-making skills, and it’s easier to make decisions when you have a clear vision for your organization. With a vision in mind, you can prioritize tasks, delegate, and allocate resources to help your organization grow and improve.

3. Alignment

Getting the best results starts with having everybody on the same page, making alignment a significant benefit of vision in leadership. Unfortunately, only 29% of employees believe their leader’s vision for the future aligns with the organization’s.

When you have a vision for your company, you can align your company in a way that supports that vision. Alignment is important because it keeps everyone in your organization working toward a common goal. A lack of vision in leadership can leave people scrambling to figure out how to contribute to your company.

4. Accountability

Vision in leadership helps with leadership accountability, which puts leaders on a level playing field with the teams they lead.

When you set long-term goals as a leader, you can look at your actions to determine if they’re contributing to those goals. If you’re not contributing to your vision the way you should be, you need to hold yourself accountable and make changes.

When you’re accountable as a leader, team members can be accountable without feeling like you’re held to a different standard.

5. Communication

You have to communicate as a leader — especially if you want to create a strong company culture that contributes to your long-term vision.

Communication may seem simple, but it’s not easy if you don’t have a clear vision that serves as an anchor and a roadmap for sustainable growth and success. When you have a vision for your organization, you can clearly communicate that vision to people and collaborate to turn that vision into reality. Without a clear vision, you can’t properly communicate your expectations and what you’re trying to achieve within the organization.

What Are the Consequences of a Lack of Vision in Leadership?

Vision and leadership go hand in hand, but that doesn’t mean every organization has a clear vision. There are several consequences of a lack of vision of leadership that you can learn about below.

1. Lack of direction

If you want to maximize productivity, everybody needs to be on the same page and working together. Unfortunately, with a lack of vision in leadership often comes a lack of direction.

When the leader of a team doesn’t have a clear direction, that trickles down to the entire team, which can lead to decreased levels of productivity and difficulty meeting deadlines that are essential for company growth. Ambiguity can cause confusion among employees, resulting in a lack of focus and productivity.

2. Conflict

When you don’t give employees a sense of direction, they often wander off on their own and pursue their own agendas. This can lead to conflict in the workplace.

Preventing workplace conflicts is essential when it comes to fostering a positive work environment. When you’re working hard to meet a deadline, the last thing you want is to take a break from that project to resolve a conflict. When people have a clear sense of what they’re expected to be doing, they can focus on the task at hand and avoid workplace conflicts.

When conflicts do arise, using your communication and empathetic leadership skills can help you quickly find a resolution.

3. High turnover

Turnover — or the rate at which workers leave your company — can lead to an inconsistent company culture that makes it difficult to remain productive. In turn, high turnover rates can lead to stagnation and a lack of innovation, as your company is unable to attract and retain top talent.

When there’s no end in sight or tangible benefit for a particular project, people can become restless. As your lack of vision in leadership becomes more apparent, and your team suffers as a result, high turnover can make it even more difficult to get things done. Preventing turnover is one of the most important responsibilities of an effective leader.

4. Low motivation

It’s hard to motivate people when you don’t know what you’re motivating them to do. Short-term projects can only keep people busy for so long, so a lack of vision in leadership will eventually lead to reduced morale.

You need to have a vision to ensure your team knows what they’re working toward. People don’t want to work just for the sake of working — especially if they’re doing something they love. They want a sense of purpose that leaves them feeling fulfilled and satisfied in their roles.

5. Lack of innovation

A lack of vision in leadership can lead to a lack of innovation, which is one of the biggest issues an up-and-coming company can have.

If there’s no long-term vision for your company, there’s no overarching objective to inspire creative solutions, new ideas, and initiatives. As a result, employees might start putting in the minimum effort to get the job done instead of taking the time to search for innovative solutions.

Why Do Leaders Fail to Develop a Vision?

If you want to lead a journey to your best possible future, you have to recognize and develop a vision that establishes who you are, how you will operate, what you hope to achieve, and what it looks like to be there. The best study of this subject that I have seen is documented in the book Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras. Their study, although somewhat outdated, continues to correlate absolutely to what I regularly see to this day—to be really successful, you need:

• A common unwavering purpose
• A clear, absolute set of operating and decision-making values
• An enticing goal
• A picture to share of what it will be like to get to your goals

Think about any great leader with whom you have worked. They may not have written these items down for you, but I will bet you know what each of these elements is for them and their organizations. Why else would you follow them and dedicate your professional life to their cause? Think about the “other” leaders you know; what was their vision?

The reasons for not developing a vision are many, but the most common are:

• We already have a vision, I saw it when I was hired…
• We already have a vision, we did that a couple of years ago…
• Our company is about making money, not singing Kumbaya…
• My people don’t want and aren’t willing accept such a soft concept…
• We have a vision—make money!
• My boss isn’t into that kind of stuff—he/she thinks it is a waste of time…
• We don’t have time to waste on that…
• I can’t develop a vision because corporate doesn’t have one…

I have heard dozens of reasons why leaders resist the opportunity to be visionary. I have learned that until a leader decides to humble themselves and, in many cases, take the risk of developing a vision, they are simply managers—managing the operational or tactical activities of their teams. Leaders have a vision of where they are going, and people are willing to work hard to help get there.

How Can Leaders Create a Vision?

Now that you understand the importance of vision in leadership, it’s important to know how to create a vision that’s clear and purposeful. Follow the steps below to create a vision that inspires, motivates, and promotes innovation: 

1. Set clear objectives: Creating a vision starts with setting clear objectives for your organization. You need to understand where your organization is at and where it should be in several years.
2. Identify core values: Building a company culture is an essential part of having a vision in leadership. Take the time to identify your core values so you can weave them into every aspect of your organization.
3. Plan for the future: Being proactive is one of the best ways to succeed as an organization, so make sure you have a plan for the future — even if things don’t go exactly as you initially planned.
4. Be clear: Communication is key — from active listening to clearly communicating goals. When you have a vision for your organization, you need to be clear about that vision and how you communicate it to others.
5. Align with the mission: Once you have a mission, you need to align yourself and your organization with that mission. Aligning with your vision is a crucial part of meeting long-term objectives.
6. Be realistic: At the end of the day, you need to be realistic about your vision. You don’t want to set unrealistic goals that you have a hard time reaching. Instead, set realistic goals that make sense for your company.

By following the steps above, you can create an impactful vision that guides you and your organization to success. Self-assess; are you actively living a clear vision? Write down the four elements of your vision (if you have developed one, use it for this exercise). Score yourself on each element of a vision as described above, scoring your behaviors on a scale of 0 (you can’t think of how you are living the element) to 10 (your behavior is always aligned with this element in ways people can see). Then invite 3 or 4 of your most trusted and respected team members privately into a meeting to give you their assessment. Ask for examples of behaviors. Analyze the results:

• Were they reluctant to assess you? No—good.
• Did they score you lower or higher than you score yourself? Higher—good.
• Were they able to give you examples of your behaviors? Yes—good.
• Were they sarcastic or unsure of what you were asking? No—good.
• Do you think they are living the vision you have? Yes—As good as it gets!

If you haven’t shared your vision or developed one for your team, you literally can’t be your best possible, so go out and take a step towards your best possible today.

Key Takeaways: Avoiding a Lack of Vision in Leadership

A lack of vision in leadership can cause significant roadblocks, including low motivation, high turnover, and a lack of innovation. The good news is that having a vision as a leader can help you prevent these problems.

Learning to lead can be difficult — especially if you’re inexperienced. One of the benefits of peer advisory groups through Vistage is getting to learn from other executives who have real-world experience. With Vistage, you can become a better leader and take your organization to new heights. Contact us to learn more about our coaching services and peer advisory groups.

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