Great LEADERSHIP is all about your VISION
Great LEADERSHIP is all about your VISION
Having a Vision for your business is the most important leadership trait for a successful leader to have. For leaders to lead they must have a strategic vision for their business. A clear future state they want to achieve. One which provides not only an optimum place within their market they want to be but one which inspires, motivates and drives the organisation to achieve.
Great leaders may be charismatic, they maybe forceful they may even be likeable, but for them to be successful they must have and be able to communicate and inspire others through their vision. A vision is a future place within tomorrow’s market.
Leader’s must create a vision which is not only aspirational for themselves but motivational for the all stakeholders in a business.
A recent survey of 1,439 chief executives and senior HR people from 707 organizations across the globe found that the outstanding trait of successful leadership is the ability to create and communicate a VISION. This is the single most important characteristic for success. Amongst those interviewed it scored an impressive 92% amongst such high level people in business. This demonstrates just how important a characteristic this is in creating a successful leader.
“Without a clear vision no leader can succeed today in business”
Business planning is vital to succeed: start with your #Vision.
Creating a VISION
Creating a vision is not easy. Leaders are busy people fighting to keep their business on track, dealing with day-to-day issues and making decisions based upon facts and figures. That last point is therefore a real challenge for leaders in developing a vision. This is because there are no facts and figures about the future. The future, by definition is unknown. Instead leaders must rely upon a range of forecasting tools, gut feel or by benchmarking others to develop their vision of what the future might look like.
Each of these are fraught with danger and risk, both in terms of making decisions based upon inaccurate perceptions or damage to their credibility as a leader. Following others through benchmarking is always the safest option for leaders, but it limits them to be a follower within any market sector, rather than to lead it from the front within their sector.
Growth is painful, change is painful but nothing is more painful than staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong
Dealing with Change.
For leaders to lead, they must be able to deal with change. Change happens in-perceivably until it is obvious. Every day we grow older but it is only when we look back we see how we have aged. The same is true in any market, even in what is called disruptive new entrants, the change that enables new players to enter is caused by changes within a market which if being monitored can be seen to create opportunities.
Change is the only constant in any business. The market is always moving either through Macro factors or through Micro factors. Good leaders need to be continually monitoring both and understanding their impacts upon their business, their customers, their channels to market and value perceptions of their brand.
#Change is always happening, the impact of change is huge but imperceivable day-to-day, unless leaders keep monitoring it.
Challenges for Leadership
Failing to create, validate, monitor and deliver a clear mission towards the delivery of a vision, is the single biggest single reason chief executives fail.
Leaders have to carry people with them for their vision to be brought to life. Poor communication skills are at the heart of why visions fail to succeed. Leaders must be able to create, verbalise and rationalise to others their vision to generate buy-in and carry their senior people with them. For a vision to succeed leaders have to build relationships, develop trust in their future and develop a team culture towards that vision. The inability for leaders to invest in developing their vision often results in the lack of trust and development of the senior team culture. This failure to develop leadership soft skills, is a major area leaders must invest in to improve their effectiveness as a leader.
Leadership is a balance between science and art. Creating a vision is often seen as an art, but for a vision to connect with senior stakeholders visions require a scientific rationale. It is the old adage we buy with the heart and justify with our head. A solid vision is both a visual but backed up with both direct and indirect evidence of that future state in which the leader’s vision sits.
Key Communication Skills
The importance of being financial and operationally literate to the CEO role is always seen as core leadership skills. These hard skills are often key drivers of leadership assessment. Which is why so many CEO’s come from finance and operations leadership backgrounds as these competencies are seen as important for any CEO role.
In todays’ business environment CEO’s are being selected based upon having a demonstrated track record of having created and delivering strategic vision. The ability to inspire, buy-in and carry others throughout the strategic vision creation and delivery process is now being seen as a the more important track record for a successful CEO.
Succession Planning
The importance of succession and smooth transition is becoming more important element for successful leadership. With the exception of the sudden changes, such as BP’s sudden need to be seen to change direction in response to events, companies today are investing time and effort in succession planning. Well planned succession planning ensures long-term shareholder value and the ability of avoiding the football management culture of overnight change. The leadership teams ability to develop successors who are able to support and follow through a vision is becoming an integral part of the CEO role.
Executives, board members and business leaders all recognise that talent management plans, including succession management have become essential for sustained performance in today’s organisations.
If you want to develop your company’s position then there needs to be a clear vision for it, answering the questions where it is going and why? If your are looking for some advice on developing your company, its marketing, its sustainable competitive advantage then contact us at Cowden Consulting. Let us see how we can assist you, or read more about us in this blog or at Cowden Consulting.
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Cowden Consulting is a strategic planning and implementation business which works in partnership with customers to grow and develop their business.
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