From Fear To Foresight: Embracing A Visionary Leadership Approach

Being able to navigate "in the fog" without a clear view of the future is a required leadership skill. Today's leaders are coping with a business environment that in 2023 is quite different than early 2020. Since 2020, leaders have struggled with uncertainty and have had to make decisions in response to unprecedented and complex challenges. Research shows that the ability to look ahead is a defining competency of leaders, yet too many organizations still lack a post-pandemic vision to guide their daily striving. Consequently, they are operating reactively instead of moving strategically with focused energy toward a desired future.

Without vision, organizations are at the mercy of the judgments of individuals who may lead their functions in a siloed and even territorial manner rather than working together to align toward a common view of the future. As one of my clients, an executive in a health care organization, recently put it, "We can't see our way out of this tough year. We don't have a near-term vision that gives a sense of where we need to be in a year or two and which priorities are most important to get us there. Everything is urgent and important. It's not clear where we are headed."

So, How Do You Know if Your Organization Needs a Vision?

Your people are asking: "Where are we going? And how long will it take to get there?"

Unlike the grand slogans on the corporate posters of yesteryear, today's vision must paint a picture that enables employees, customers and other stakeholders to see, understand and care about the future. An effective vision is inspiring, compelling and specific. It links external and internal context, showing how the organization will deliver on its mission in a future environment. Our working definition of vision is "a detailed story of the desired future."

The Vision Process: Where Have We Been? Where Are We Now? Where Are We Going?

Developing vision requires telling three important stories: history, current state and future story. Be forewarned: Leaders who skip to the end and attempt to work on vision without discussion of the past and present will struggle to bring others along. Your people will not welcome change without recognition and discussion of the organization's evolution and the realities that it faces today. To provide visionary leadership, your process must invite people to travel in time from the organization's founding story (where the mission originated) to the present day with all its uncertainty and then to an articulation of the desired future. This three-story process requires a shift from analytical thinking to possibility thinking – a key distinction in the creation of vision.

From Fear to Foresight

After more than 20 years of guiding groups in the creation of a compelling vision, I've learned that fear lives in the future. As human beings, we are wired for fear — and tend to believe that the worst-case scenario is the most likely one. Rick Carson, author of "Taming Your Inner Gremlin: A Surprisingly Simple Method for Getting Out of Your Own Way," once explained to me: "We have a bad habit of turning on the Fear Channel and watching it non-stop. We believe it will come true. To address fear, you've got to recognize that what you fear hasn't happened yet. Fear lives in the future." Like vision.

A good vision process addresses inevitable fears by asking the group to answer two questions: What are we afraid of? What holds us back?

Skipping this line of inquiry is not an option. Without it, people will redirect the process back to a discussion of their apprehensions. And you will not develop an exciting, game-changing vision without making space for a discussion of fear. However, once fears are named and discussed, the way is clear for visionary thinking.

Building a Future That Is Not Like the Past

In an era of ongoing uncertainty, waiting for the fog to clear isn't an option. Leaders must use vision as a navigational device for getting from today to a better place. When executive teams share a common view of the future, they align efforts and row hard together in that direction.

When employees understand where the organization expects to be in the next few years, they can turn off the "Fear Channel" and get to work to ensure arrival at the desired destination. Without near-term vision, an organization lacks the focus needed to build momentum and navigate the tides of change.

Kate Ebner, a leadership coach, is the CEO and founder of Nebo Company. She is also a leadership faculty member and founding director of Georgetown University's Institute for Transformational Leadership.

(Opinions expressed in this article are the author's own.)