The Power of Vision, Part 5

December 28, 2015January 3, 2016 / Justin Irving / 10 Comments

Photo Credit: Visions of Color, by Joe Dyndale, Flickr

I’m in a mini-series focused on the power of vision. Here’s a snapshot of where we’ve been in the series:

In Part 1, I began by providing the following definition of vision: vision is a picture of a preferred future. Further, I described the major work of leaders as communicating this picture of a preferred future in a manner that is compelling and unifying.

In Part 2, I engaged the capacity of vision to provide passion, motivation, direction, and purpose for life and leadership.

In Part 3, I engaged how leaders can help to make vision stick by casting the vision well, celebrating the vision well, and living the vision well.

In Part 4, I engaged how leaders can identify their burning passion and compelling vision.

This week, I’d like to provide a final encouragement as you consider the vision you are meant to pursue in the year ahead.

Looking to Your Future

As I write this post, New Year’s Day is just around the corner. In many ways, the start of a new year provides an opportunity for us to do what we should be regularly doing throughout the year—looking to the future and planning in light of it.

As you look out the future, what is the picture of a preferred future both for you and your organization?

First, what does this preferred future look like both personally and professionally?

Personally: What is your personal vision … for you, your family, and your community in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead?
Professionally: What is your professional or organizational vision … for you and the community you serve in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead?

Second, what does this future look like at different points along the way on the journey toward your preferred future?

What does it look like weeks in the future?
What does it look like months in the future?
What does it look like years in the future?

Developing a Strategy for Visionary Planning

Weekly	Carve out 15 minutes at the beginning of each week in order to prioritize your schedule and insure you are working toward your preferred future.
Monthly	Carve out 2 hours to evaluate the previous month and then plan for the coming month in light of your visionary priorities.
Quarterly	Carve out a day (workday length) in order to evaluate progress in light of your personal and professional vision. Use this evaluation to make adjustments for the coming 2-3 months.
Annually	Carve out a 1-2 day retreat (getting away to a hotel, cabin, or retreat center) where you can have focused time not only evaluating the past year, but also reevaluating your overall visionary priorities. This is an annual time to insure that the direction of your life and leadership is moving toward a preferred future in light of the things that matter most in life.
Seasonally (each 5-7 years)	Carve out a week or more every 5-7 years for a season of deep rest, refreshment, and renewal. This is not about simply taking a vacation—something that likely happens every year—but rather taking a genuine sabbatical from the normal routines of life. Some professions may allow for this seasonal time to be multiple months of rest, refreshment, and renewal. For other professions and work contexts, this seasonal time may be limited to a typical vacation week. In either case, find a path for intentional reflection on the trajectory of your life and leadership. Have you seen tangible progress toward major visionary dreams you had 5 to 7 years earlier (degrees you wanted to complete, job changes you wanted to pursue, organizational goals you wanted to accomplish, etc.)? As you look out into the next 5 to 7 years of your life and leadership, what are your major visionary priorities for the years ahead? What course corrections need to be made now to help navigate toward this preferred future? How can you adjust your schedule, budget, and general pace of life to make space for prioritizing movement toward this preferred future? Engaging major life questions like this takes time and space for rest, renewal, and reflection. Take time not only for vacation and recreation, but also for sabbatical in order to tackle such visionary reflection and dreaming in your life.

Vision: the Tool for Leading from the Front

Whether thinking of vision personally, professionally, or organizationally, vision is a powerful tool for your life and leadership.

Engaging the power of vision in leadership, Burt Nanus shares these thoughtful insights:

“Vision is the main tool leaders use to lead from the front.
Effective leaders don’t push or production their followers. They don’t boss them around or manipulate them. They are out front showing the way. The vision allows leaders to inspire, attract, align, and energize their followers—to empower them by encouraging them to become part of a common enterprise dedicated to achieving the vision.”

Rather than simply using push and production techniques, as leaders we need to learn to lead from the front. Vision provides the essential tool for moving from extrinsic motivation to intrinsic motivation. Vision provides the path for painting a picture of a hopeful future that motives us personally and others organizationally. As Nanus notes, “Vision is the main tool leaders use to lead from the front.”

Taking Your Next Visionary Steps

As you look to your future, the key is to pay attention and make changes based on this visionary reflection. In the week ahead, I encourage you to take some time to pay attention to your preferred future (your vision), and begin to take steps toward this preferred future in practical, tangible, and meaningful ways.

God’s best to each of you as you make strides toward the things that matter most in your life.

Here are all of the post links for this series:

The Power of Vision, Part 1
The Power of Vision, Part 2
The Power of Vision, Part 3
The Power of Vision, Part 4
The Power of Vision, Part 5

The Power of Vision, Part 3

December 14, 2015January 3, 2016 / Justin Irving / 10 Comments

Photo Credit: Vision of Transformation, by Hartwig HKD, Flickr

I’m in a mini-series focused on the power of vision.

I began by providing the following definition of vision: vision is a picture of a preferred future (see Part 1). Further, I described the major work of leaders as communicating this picture of a preferred future in a manner that is compelling and unifying.

Last I engaged the capacity of vision to provide passion, motivation, direction, and purpose for life and leadership (see Part 2).

This week I want to take some time to engage how leaders can help to make vision stick.

Making the Vision Stick

In a 2003 talk at the Global Leadership Summit, Andy Stanley provided his reflections on the importance of vision and how to make vision stick for organizations.

Why is this an issue for leaders? As most leaders can attest, vision tends to “leak” in organizations. The vision is put forward for all the key constituents and everyone seems to be on board and excited. Then a few weeks, or even a few days, go by, and suddenly the demands of day-to-day life and organizational needs turn the attention of people away from vision.

In light of this, leaders must be very intentional in working to help vision land and stick with their people. On this point, Stanley argues that leaders must do three primary things with vision: Cast it! Celebrate it! Live it!

Cast it! Celebrate it! Live it!

Casting the vision provides DEFINITION:

Casting the vision helps everyone in the organization to be on the same page. But the vision that is cast bust be clear first. Sometimes when we start talking about vision we realize it’s unclear. As Howard Hendricks states it: “if it’s a mist in the pulpit, it’s a fog in the pews.” Vision must not be “clear as mud.” Vision needs to be exceptionally clear to the leader so that it may be clear for followers once communicated.

Celebrating vision provides INSPIRATION:

Celebrating the vision helps everyone know what a “win” is for your organization. It helps put “skin” on the vision for your people. Make celebration a part of your culture. Celebration is what brings the vision alive to your people. Build in mechanism to celebrate. Normalize and regularize celebration. Tell the story well so that vision comes alive.

Living out the vision provides CREDIBILITY:

Leaders living out the vision helps you to be a leader worth following. When we live it out whether we’re the leader or not, this moves us from leading from position to leading from influence. The vision becomes connected to who you are. People want to know whether or not a leader is living the vision, not just talking about the vision. Without leaders living it, followers may question whether the credibility of the vision is intact. You can’t ask people to do something that the leader is not willing to do themselves.

Leading with Vision

As you lead with vision in your community, how are you working to cast it well, celebrate it well, and live it well? Take a moment to share your story below.

Here are all of the post links for this series:

The Power of Vision, Part 1
The Power of Vision, Part 2
The Power of Vision, Part 3
The Power of Vision, Part 4
The Power of Vision, Part 5

The Power of Vision, Part 2

December 7, 2015January 3, 2016 / Justin Irving / 10 Comments

Photo Credit: vision, by EladeManu, Flickr

I’m in a mini-series focused on the power of vision.

Last week I provided my definition of vision as a picture of a preferred future, and described the major work of leaders as communicating this picture of a preferred future in a manner that is compelling and unifying (see Part 1).

This week I want to take some time to engage why vision is so powerful.

Visioneering

In his book, Visioneering, Andy Stanley makes the following observation:

“Too many times the routines of life begin to feel like shoveling dirt. But take those same routines, those same responsibilities, and view them through the lens of vision and everything looks different. Vision brings your world into focus. Vision brings order to chaos. A clear vision enables you to see everything differently.”

What Vision Provides

Building on these observations, Stanley notes that vision helps to weave four things into the fabric of our daily lives:

Passion

“Vision evokes passion…. A clear, focused vision actually allows us to experience ahead of time the emotions associated with our anticipated future.”

Motivation

“Vision provides motivation. The mundane begins to matter. The details, chores, and routines of life become a worthwhile means to a planned–for end.”

Direction

“[Vision] serves as a road map…. Vision simplifies decisions making…. Vision empowers you to move purposefully in a predetermined direction.”

Purpose

“Vision translates into purpose. A vision gives you a reason to get up in the morning…. Purpose carries with it the momentum to move you through the barriers that would otherwise slow you down and trip you up.”

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As you look to a picture of a preferred future for your life and organization, how is this work of “visioneering” (or vision casting) providing passion, motivation, direction, and purpose for you? In what ways has vision helped to provide clarity and focus to your life and leadership?

Here are all of the post links for this series:

The Power of Vision, Part 1
The Power of Vision, Part 2
The Power of Vision, Part 3
The Power of Vision, Part 4
The Power of Vision, Part 5

Creating a Place for Individuality (Leadership Practice 5)

June 8, 2015July 21, 2015 / Justin Irving / 10 Comments

Individuality !, Craig Sunter – Thanx 2 Mil…, Flickr

I’m in a series highlighting 9 Effective Servant Leadership Practices. Servant leadership is not just a good idea. It works! The 9 effective leadership practices highlighted in this series capture core leadership dimensions that are correlated with effectiveness in the team context.

The second grouping of servant leadership practices presented in the model emphasizes the importance of understanding the priority of people. In this second cluster of servant leadership practices, leadership behaviors associated with effective teams include: (1) valuing and appreciating, (2) creating a place for individuality, and (3) understanding relational skills. Last week, we highlighted Valuing and Appreciating People. This week we take on Leadership Practice 5—Creating a Place for Individuality.

Practice 5: Creating a Place for Individuality

There is a tendency in some organizational circles to simple view people as cogs in a larger organizational system. But who likes it, and flourishes, when they are viewed in such a mechanistic and replaceable fashion?

Beyond the Cog

In contrast to this approach, servant leaders help to Create a Place for Individuality in their work with their teams. Outcomes matter in organizations. So does holding followers accountable to these outcomes—a point emphasized in this larger research study. But it is also vital to recognize that outcomes are not necessarily achieved in a uniform manner.

Beyond Uniformity

In contrast to approaches that emphasize follower uniformity, this leadership practice emphasizes allowing for individuality of style and expression in followers as well as accepting followers for who they are as individuals. In contrast to the overly mechanized systems encouraged in some twentieth century managerial models, this study challenges twenty-first century leaders to remember the individual and to create space for individuality in work performance.

Beyond Micromanaging

Research participants note the importance of simple expressions of individuality. Of the expressions noted were dimensions of flexibility such as work style, clothing, and office hours. Participants also noted that flexibility for follower expressions of individuality are best supported through the avoidance of micromanaging leadership behaviors.

Moving Toward Common Culture over Uniformity

One participant noted, “Set strategic goals, but allow individuals to engage in creative processes to get there.” On the theme of how follower individuality coincides with organizational unity, participants noted that commonality at the level of mission, vision, goals, and values provides “the glue that holds the organization together,” and that “under this umbrella there is ample room for individuality.”

Arguing that great leaders find ways to meld the needs of individuals with the needs of an organization, one participant argues that this “requires the leader to take an active interest in the capacity of those under their leadership.” They continue noting the importance of assigning responsibility and delegating authority “based on the giftedness of the follower in alignment with the project or task to be completed.”

Moving Toward Individuality and Individualized Consideration

All of this requires an individualized consideration similar to what Bass and Avolio put forward in transformational leadership theory. This calls leaders to a higher level of investment in creating space for individuals to work uniquely toward common goals. While it is sometimes easier to mandate uniformity and conformance, taking the extra time and effort to create space for individuality is a valuable leadership practice that is significantly related to effectiveness in this study.

While a focus on outcomes is important, how are you creating a place for individuality in your work with followers? Think through a step or two you can take in appreciating and providing space for the individuality of your team members.

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Related Posts for the 9 Effective Leadership Practices:

Cluster One — Beginning with Authentic Leaders

Practice 1: Modeling what Matters

Practice 2: Engaging in Honest Self-Evaluation

Practice 3: Fostering Collaboration

Cluster Two — Understanding the Priority of People

Practice 4: Valuing and Appreciating

Practice 5: Creating a Place for Individuality

Practice 6: Understanding Relational Skills

Cluster Three — Helping Followers Navigate toward Effectiveness

Practice 7: Communicating with Clarity

Practice 8: Supporting and Resourcing

Practice 9: Providing Accountability

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Note: For those wanting to dig a bit deeper, please check out my article entitled “A Model for Effective Servant Leadership Practice.”

Strategic Foresight: The Past, Present, and Future Focus of Leadership

September 29, 2014January 3, 2016 / Justin Irving / 3 Comments

Photo: In the middle of nowhere, Brian Koprowski, Flickr

Photo Credit: In the middle of nowhere, by Brian Koprowski, Flickr

Clarity and foresight are essential leadership characteristics. Organizations and teams need leaders who can see clearly in the midst of confusing organizational and environmental realities.

THE VUCA WORLD

We are increasingly experiencing what some refer to as a “VUCA” world of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. More than ever, we need leaders with vision, clarity, and foresight.

FORESIGHT

Larry Spears argues that foresight is one of Robert K. Greenleaf’s core characteristics of servant leaders. Of foresight, Spears notes:

“Closely related to conceptualization, the ability to foresee the likely outcome of a situation is hard to define, but easy to identify. One knows it when one sees it. Foresight is a characteristic that enables the servant-leader to understand the lessons from the past, the realities of the present, and the likely consequence of a decision for the future.”

THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE FOCUS OF FORESIGHT

This thread of learning from the past, observing the present, and anticipating the likely consequences of decisions on the future is critical. Focusing on only one of these areas can lead to leadership blind spots. Using and embracing all of them brings holistic perspective to leadership.

Past: The past is full of lessons, but it is not where we live. We must look to the past. We must listen to the past. We musts learn from the past. But, we must not live in the past. We must not only celebrate the past glory days of our organizations and communities.

Present: We must be present in the moment we’ve received, fully engaging the lives and mission we’ve been given as individuals and as organizations. At the same time, we must not be short-sighted and only live for the moment.

Future: Similarly, we must look to the future in light of the lessons of the past and present. We must anticipate and make course corrections based on likely outcomes and anticipated scenarios. But, we must not only look to the future. We can be so future-oriented that we miss the people and opportunities that are right in front of us. We must not live in the future, but rather look to the future for insights that inform the present.

STRATEGIC FORESIGHT

Although all organizational members benefit from looking at the past, present, and future, leaders in particular have this as part of their core job responsibilities. Leaders must learn from the past and present and look to the future with strategic foresight.

Foresight is not about looking into a crystal ball to see the future. Foresight is about actively learning. It is about playing out future possibilities and scenarios in our minds based on the past and present knowledge we have of our organizations and world. It is about identifying with clarity what will be the likely future outcomes of decisions we make in the present.

FORESIGHT FOR TODAY

In other words, although foresight is looking to the future, foresight serves the present. Leaders look to likely future possibilities based on diverse possible decisions and scenarios, and then they return to the present to guide present-day decision making in light of this future-looking foresight activity.

As you look at the past, present, and possible futures in your organization, what narrative threads and patterns emerge? What lessons do these threads point to for your community? As you look to the future and anticipate likely outcomes of decisions, what decisions need to be made in the present to serve your organization in light of these desired outcomes?

Engage your leadership with foresight, guiding your present based on lessons from the past and foreseeing likely outcomes in your organizational future.

6 Characteristics of Organizations with Vision

August 13, 2014January 3, 2016 / Justin Irving / 4 Comments

Photo Credit: mind_scratch, Ultima visión, Flickr

In a previous post, I highlighted the importance of Leading from the Front with Vision. Focusing on why vision matters, Burt Nanus provides a list of characteristics of organizations with and without vision. Here is a summary of these characteristics:

*Organizations with Vision*	*Organizations without Vision*
Opportunity-Driven Focused on Change Progressing toward Goals Oriented Strategically Focused on Long-Term Results Proactive	Problem-Driven Focused on Stability Focused on Past Performance Oriented Tactically Focused on Short-Term Results Reactive

An orientation toward change, pursuing opportunities, working toward goals, focusing strategically, paying attention to long-term interests, and being proactive tend to go along with visionary focus.

Based on these characteristics, are you embedded in an organization with or without vision? If you are leader, are you guiding your organization with vision?

Leading from the Front … Leading with Vision

August 7, 2014January 3, 2016 / Justin Irving / 4 Comments

Photo Credit: Leadership vs. Management, on Flickr

Leading from the front requires leading with vision!

Engaging the question, “Why does vision matter?” Burt Nanus offers the following reflection:

“Vision is the main tool leaders use to lead form the front. Effective leaders don’t push or production their followers. They don’t boss them around or manipulate them. They are out front showing the way. The vision allows leaders to inspire, attract, align, and energize their followers—to empower them by encouraging them to become part of a common enterprise dedicated to achieving the vision.”

In this brief post I encourage you to consider whether you’re leading from the front or whether you’re leading from behind. Are you calling people to an inspiring vision of what can be, or are you pushing and prodding followers to do what they really are not committed to already?

Vision helps to motivate followers intrinsically rather than extrinsically. Vision helps to lead from the front!

Leadership & Management

July 29, 2014January 3, 2016 / Justin Irving / 2 Comments

Photo Credit: 3D Team Leadership Arrow Concept, Scott Maxwell, Flickr

The conversation surrounding leadership and management is an important one. While management was a major emphasis in the 20^th century, focusing on stability and control, leadership has come to the forefront later in the 20^th century and into our current time. In contrast to stability and control, leadership emphasizes valuing change, valuing people, empowerment of people, and the central place of relationships in organizational life.

Leadership and Management Described

John Kotter provides a helpful overview of the distinction between leadership and management. Management’s orientation around stability and control is characterized by dimensions such as (a) planning and budgeting, (b) organizing and staffing, and (c) controlling and problem-solving. leadership’s orientation around people, empowerment, and relationships is characterized by (a) direction-setting, (b) aligning, and (c) motivating.

Processes vs. People

While management focuses on stability and efficiency of processes, leadership focuses on navigating people and systems toward change and insuring that the team or organization is focused on the right things. The language of processes and people is also helpful. Management tends to be more process and object focused; leadership tends to be more people and human resource focused.

Efficiency vs. Effectiveness

The temptation is to raise one of these as more important than the other. Organizations and followers need both stability (management) and change (leadership). Organizations and followers need both efficiency (management) and effectiveness (leadership). In contrasting the two, I think my natural tendency is to focus on the big picture and whether or not we are making progress toward the right goals for our community. Because of this, I need to regularly and intentionally ensure that the managerial side of my departments is not being lost in the leadership emphasis.

Pursuing Both in Your Practice

Whether we tend toward leadership or management, we need to remember that our organizations need both. Make sure that you know your tendency so that you may give attention to balancing this out in your own practice and through the diverse people brought onto your team.

Organizational Culture vs. Organizational Identity

July 17, 2014January 3, 2016 / Justin Irving / 1 Comment

It is vital that organizational leaders understand the distinction between organizational identity and organizational culture.

Organizational Identity is the visible and public dimension of an organization. It is captured by what is included in its public documents, websites, and public forms of communication.

Organizational Culture is the deeper essence of the organization, often present at the unseen or unconscious levels of organizational life. In his book Organizational Culture and Leadership, Edgar Schein argues that organizational culture is essentially “…the accumulated shared learning of a given group” and “its pattern of shared, taken-for-granted basic assumptions.”

With this distinction of organizational identity as a public dimension and organizational culture as a sometimes unseen dimension, I use the iconic metaphor of an iceberg to capture this thought and distinction. Leaders who are only paying attention to the organizational identity that is above the waterline might inadvertently collide with the underlying organizational culture. Leaders must pay attention to both dimensions—both above and beneath the waterline.

Photo Credit: IMG_2863, by ravas51, Flickr

Leaders must not only be aware of and communicate the public identity of their organization, they must also be aware of how this stated identity is either ALIGNED OR MISALIGNED with the actual organizational culture.

Organizations sometimes assert organizational identities that are more aspirational than actual. In one sense, this is helpful. We want to strive for improvement as individuals and as organizations. The leadership danger, however, is when the gap between aspirational identity and actual culture is unseen by the core leaders of the organization.

As leaders, we need to raise our awareness of where organizational identity and culture are aligned and where they are misaligned. Where there is alignment, let’s celebrate and tell the story. Where there is misalignment, let’s lead our communities toward our organizational aspirations with visionary determination.