Do you have a personal leadership vision?

August 30, 2009
Filed under Leadership

Stew Friedman writes a great post titled “Define Your Personal Leadership Vision” in which he provides some guidance on how to go about defining your personal leadership vision. He describes a personal leadership vision as…

“… an essential means for focusing attention on what matters most; what you want to accomplish in your life and what kind of leader you wish to be. A useful vision has to be rooted in your past, address the future, and deal with today’s realities. It represents who you are and what you stand for. It inspires you, and the people whose commitment you need, to act to make constructive change towards a future you all want to see.”

The personal leadership vision is comprised of the following four components:

A compelling story of the future is engaging; it captures the heart, forces you to pay attention. Those who hear it want to be a part of it somehow. And they are moved.

What does your future look like – what’s the image? If others could travel into the future with you, what would they find? A well-crafted leadership vision is described in concrete terms that are easy to visualize and remember.

The story of your future should be a stretch, but it must be achievable, too. If it were not achievable, you would have little motivation to even bother trying.

Finally, future simply means out there – some time from this moment forward, but not so far away that’s it’s out of reach.

A personal leadership vision provides an anchor for uncertain times. Without out a clear leadership vision we are too easily tossed to a fro by every wind change. Finding it difficult to make progress and distracted by unnecessary work.