Photo by George Amar Moreño
In The Balance
website, Susan Heathfield compiled these quotes:
“ The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a
vision. It’s got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion.”
-
Theodore Hesburgh, President , University of
Notre Dame
“ There’s nothing more demoralizing than a leader who can’t
clearly articulate why we’re doing what we’re doing. “
-
James Kousez and Barry Posner, authors of The Leadership Challenge
“ Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the
vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.”
-Jack Welch, former CEO of GE
As we can see, “articulation” is the second most important
thing to “vision.” But the articulation is where many leaders and companies
fail.
In some cases, the writing is uninspired or full of jargon.
In the Blinkist summary of Words That Work by Dr. Frank Luntz , presidential candidate John
Kerry was cited as an example of a person who spoke in a complicated manner.
“For example, he spoke of his preference for a “progressive internationalism”
over the “too belligerent” and myopic unilateralism of the Bush Administration.
“ The voters didn’t have a clue of what
he was talking about.
In contrast, Martin Luther King, Jr. was very clear and so
moving when he said “ we will be able to speed up that day when all God’s
children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and
Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing…”
Experts suggest that vision statements should be clear
enough to be understood and embraced by the lowest ranking employee. And they
must know what specific thing they can do to contribute.
In many companies, the vision and mission statements are enshrined
on the wall but are never discussed in the operations. Where I work, we have
the good habit of summarizing every meeting against a checklist of our vision,
mission and values.
According to the quotes above, the leader is the best person
to champion the vision. Problem begins when the leader is not consistent with
his messages. Many leaders use ambiguity, doublespeak, or euphemisms for
latitude. These give them allowance to
later “clarify” their neither-here-nor-there position.
It results in confusion.
Which may lead to loss of trust. In laboratory experiments, it was shown
that the unpredictability of things can result in “learned helplessness.”
Then there’s the “Law of the Picture” from leadership guru
John Maxwell’s 21 Irrefutable Laws of
Leadership.
It says that “people do what people see.” Maxwell advises
that “When leaders show the way with the right actions, their followers copy
them and succeed. “ Actions are eloquent. So, a leader cannot effectively
communicate the importance of integrity if he has known cheaters and slackers
in his inner circle.
When I was temporary head of an ad agency, our HR consultant
taught me that the main duty of the leader is to give the command “Let’s march
! “
We better know where we are really going.
“ The single biggest
problem in communication is the illusion that it
has taken place. “
- George Bernard Shaw
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