Visionary leadership

When a speaker at an event refers to this type of Leadership, using sophisticated and resonant words from the 90’s, they usually emphasise the word “vision” (it is always the first word that comes up) and immediately after, another word appears, which is “aspirational”.

After this exaltation of a few minutes about the visionary and the aspirational, two practical questions come to mind that generally remain unanswered in congresses, lectures, books, and various courses: What do we do about it, once we have understood the concept? What are we really talking about when we speak of VISION?

Conley explains that a vision is such when the members of a company or organisation share an explicit agreement on the values, beliefs, purposes and goals that should guide their behaviour. Simply put, he calls this “an internal compass”.
Robert Fritz (1996) says that organisations move forward when a clear vision, broadly understood, creates a tension between the real and the ideal, pushing people to work together to close the gap between the two. And when this does not happen, an external consultant or coach should be hired to help bridge that gap, I add.

Finally, vision could be called a unifying effect, an experiential journey, which becomes especially important in scenarios with a high level of uncertainty, where business outcomes are unclear, market conditions are changing, and it is important to focus efforts and ask to go the extra mile at times when it is necessary for every employee to engage responsibly and maturely in business outcomes.

Generally, organisations with a clear vision have standards where employees can measure their own efforts, as they all speak the same language, have the same kinds of informal expectations of each other, and there is a strong common ground. Another question then arises: How do Visionary Leaders develop?

Many leaders believe that developing a vision is a simple task, consisting of articulating a set of beliefs and then implementing them. However, experience shows that a vision is an evolutionary process rather than a singular event; a process that requires continuous reflection, action and evaluation as each day is an opportunity to move closer to the goals.
Many people also think that a vision emerges from the mind of a strong, imaginative, energetic and charismatic leader that suddenly starts a great transformation in the organisation. In short: magic formulas. Others support the view that it is a shared process in which everyone is a co-author. However, both of these approaches can be counterproductive.

It is clear that the Steering Committee and the CEO play a key role in shaping the vision, sometimes without the help of others. And it is natural to recognise that in the hands of an articulate and persuasive leader, a distinctive personal vision can be far more attractive than the conciliatory product of a group.

But as long as the vision is part of what people in the organisation can really embrace, honest authorship as Fritz sees it is irrelevant. However, those managers with heroic inclinations must be willing to let go of personal authorship when it comes time for implementation, or the collaborators will not commit to it as Conley explains. Why? Because it basically doesn’t matter who created the vision, since those who lead are the ones who are responsible for it, who promote it, and who have to watch over it. In his study on shared decision-making, Weiss found that little changed the outcome unless the leader took the lead and actively exercised it. Apparently, authoritative leaders can act on individual visions, but they do not spontaneously create shared visions.

In short: visionary leaders need to be assertive enough to push some subtle steps forward and patient enough to allow people to find their own way and thus create a readiness, climate and culture for change. To do this, it is necessary to share and explain the vision in an enthusiastic way: encouraging, celebrating successes; accepting failures; and remaining loyal by confronting the inevitable problems and missteps and removing any illusions of magic solutions in order to realise the potential of the organisation’s vision by aligning people to it.

As business leaders work through the challenges of an organisation’s vision, they may discover that the impossible can be made possible, especially in difficult times.