How to be a Vision Driven Leader. (Ep. 149)

Whether you own a business, pastor a church, or are an entrepreneur, one thing is certain, we need a laser-like focused vision to succeed. As leaders, we should be to leading first with vision by creating a compelling future for our customers and/or teams.

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How to be a Vision Driven Leader. (Ep. 149)

Vision-driven leaders focus first on what they see. Your vision should begin inside, deep within the recesses of your heart. Then, when you know where you believe you’re headed, it’s important to bring your team to the table and communicate what God’s placed on your heart. The goal, to communicate that vision and make it tangible.

In this podcast episode, I talk about Michael Hyatt’s new book, The Vision Driven Leader. Here’s the review I wrote on Amazon:

Michael Hyatt has crafted an easy to follow system to declutter the mind, distill down to the heart of a leader’s vision, and a simple to follow process for writing it down and how to leverage your team’s ideas and thoughts so you can place your church or business in a place to win.

One of my favorite quotes in the book comes near the end – “Waiting feels safe, but waiting kills vision. Where will you take your team…?” In other words, don’t wait until you have crafted the perfect vision, start somewhere, start today, and leverage your future with a good plan today.

General George Paton said, “A good plan executed today is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”

I highly recommend this book to any pastor, church leader, business coach, leader, or CEO who is looking for a way to cultivate change today, so they can win tomorrow.

I want to give you three ways this book will help you to craft a compelling vision and distill it down into something that will inspire. Why do we need a vision? What happens if we take the time to look inside? What will we see?

1. Vision Drives Everything

First, vision is inspiring. It’s the driving force behind the why of any business or dream. It’s about being a part of something bigger than yourself. Sure, there are times when vision seems daunting and out of reach. But lifting your perspective to a higher elevation, vision gives you a three to five year view of where you desire to be.

Second; the question you have to ask yourself: what is the change I want to make in this world? How will your vision of a better tomorrow inspire others to get beyond themselves and change the world? People want to be part of something bigger than themselves.

How will the lives of others be changed by your vision? If you can discover that answer you’ll find people will jump on board and do what it takes.

2 questions every leader must answer in discovering their vision.

Chapter 1 – Are you a leader or a manager?
Chapter 2 – What difference does vision make?

2. Drafting your Vision Script.

It’s easy to be short-sighted in crafting a vision. A lot of leaders look at vision as, “I would like to be…” or “I hope we’ll be…” By having this mindset, leaders set themselves up for failure.

Instead of thinking the above, maybe we should write our vision out as if we’re living it right now. At Life Church, a few years ago we recrafted our vision and it has become the driving focus for our church. Here’s an example of our vision.

“We see a church where people love God first in every area of their life through worship, the Word, and fellowship with other believers.

We serve people in their areas of influence by showing the love of Jesus through their actions and using their spiritual gifts to minister to those who attend services and Life Groups.

We have a church filled with individuals who take their love of God and take that love into the world for people to discover the hope Jesus has to offer.”

Take time to flesh out your vision. If it can fit on a coffee cup, it’s too short-sighted. Vision is about crafting a future that you see. Sure, you can take your vision script and craft a mission statement from that to keep people focused on the task at hand. But taking the time to take your vision and craft a narrative around that, you’ll have a better idea of where you’re going.

Once you do that, you can bring your team in and begin selling the vision God’s given you.

To put this into practice, Micahel answers five questions:

Chapter 3 – What do you want?
Chapter 4 – Is it clear?
Chapter 5 – Does it inspire?
Chapter 6- Is it practical?
Chapter 7 – Can you sell it?

3. The Challenge Ahead.

Vision has to be visible. It needs to be attainable and inspiring for your team members to grasp. Vision with either make or break a company. There are multiple organizations that refused to change or innovate their vision and instead became comfortable with where they were at. Your vision should always be changing, just like a life plan.

There will always be resistance to a new vision. Take Starbucks for instance. 1971, by three partners who met while they were students at the University of San Francisco: English teacher Jerry Baldwin, history teacher Zev Siegl, and writer Gordon Bowker were inspired to sell high-quality coffee beans and equipment by coffee roasting in their shop called, Starbucks.

They became shortsighted when one of their employees came back from a trip to Europe. There Howard Schultz said their future was selling espresso. They laughed him out of the company. So, he started his own shop selling espresso drinks. It quickly gained strength and in 1984 his former employers sold him Starbucks because they were losing money. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Why, because they didn’t change with the times and they didn’t zag.

It’s never too late to change your vision, re-center your priorities and take your team to the next level.

In the final section of the book, Michael asks these three questions:

Chapter 8 – How should you face resistance?
Chapter 9 – Is it too late?
Chapter 10 – Are you ready?

Let me close with a quote from Michael Hyatt’s blog:

“As leaders, vision begins with us. If we’re not visionary, no one else on the team will be either. This is one responsibility we cannot delegate and dare not abdicate. Begin with a clear vision of the future. Then make it an inspiring, concrete, and practical tool, and communicate it relentlessly. People will follow.”