Who do we consider a good leader? One with qualities, someone with a proven track record for integrity, wisdom, steadfastness. Or is it an individual who creates great visions?
The downside about perception of a leaders vision is that that followers of the leader may not share an exact picture of the same vision. The primary focus of the leader being the end result, the leader hopes that his/her motivation will give birth to new ideas of how the goal is to be reached. But what about those who have perceived this vision differently. And why? Not because the leader has drawn the picture insufficiently but because followers have based this vision on their own belief system and it is these beliefs that give meaning to the leaders’ vision adding a logical sense of correctness, a sense of familarity.
Goals and Confidence
Everyone has goals; we have all not reached this far without them. Right from when we wake up in the morning, we start achieving small goals. We term them as everyday chores which we take for granted but in reality they are goals which we have set ourselves to do. Not many of us do, but when we give ourselves credit for achieving these goals, we grow more confident as individuals. This confidence does not bloom without assertiveness of our beliefs. It is this confidence which controls our behavior and builds our comprehension, our cognitive understanding of imaginary visions; which forms the reasons why confident followers form different pictures of a common vision.
How do leaders bring all these confident people to see the same picture? Well, they don’t.
Filling in the Big Picture
If the leader needs a vision to work, he/she will have to draw the outline and let the followers fill in the colours. The leaders job is not to describe the outline in terms of a completely coloured picture. By not defining the picture itself but describing the impact of the picture on the unforseen future, the leader is perceptably already in the future encourging the others to join him,not describing possible paths but encouraging ideas to reach the world of this higher achievment. He is not set apart from the followers. He is a part of them switching between being in the future whenever he/she needs to access motivation and coming back to the present to coach the followers forward, giving them ownership for their decisions , giving them a sense of participation, belonging and appreciation.
Ownership of Reality
When the vision is finally accomplished, the leader is not the owner of this reality. He/ She was emotionally intelligent enough to recognise this right from the beginning, from when the well-defined vision was a conceptual idea. Every cognitive move thereafter is to allign the beliefs of these confident followers with what the vision stands for and to access behavior from them which would coach their thoughts towards filling in the colours and contours of the picture and watch it grow into grand splendour in front of their eyes.