APPA Library

"It's Not Just the Leader's Vision"
Author: Kouzes, James M.,Posner, Barry Z.,
Published In: Facilities Manager
Date: July/August 2008

At some point during all this talk over the years about the importance of being future-oriented, leaders got the sense that they were the ones that had to be the visionaries. Often with the encouragement of a lot of leadership developers, leaders came to assume that if others expected them to be forward-looking, then they had to go off all alone into the wilderness, climb to the top of some mountain, sit in the lotus position, wait for a revelation, and then go out and announce to the world what they foresee. Leaders have assumed that it's their vision that matters, and if it's their vision then "they" have to create it. Wrong! This is "not" what constituents expect. What people really want to hear is not the leader's vision. They want to hear about "their own" aspirations. They want to hear how their dreams will come true and their hopes will be fulfilled. They want to see themselves in the picture of the future. The very best leaders understand that their key task is inspiring a "shared" vision, not selling their own idiosyncratic view of the world. In this article, the authors contend that it's not the leader's vision but the people's vision that matters most.

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