Beyond Leadership: Balancing Economics, Ethics and Ecology, Revised Edition

Acquiring the Power of Vision

What inhibits vision?

The first question we have to ask ourselves is what stops us embarking on, and returning from, the heroic journey, the combination of which ultimately results in the extraction of vision. Why do we fail to grow up? Why do our organizations fail to mature? Why do our visions fail to come out?

Personal transformation

All the life potentialities that we never managed to bring to adult realization, those other portions of oneself are there; for such golden seeds do not die. If only a portion of that lost totality could be dredged up into the light of day we should experience a marvelous expansion of our powers, a vivid renewal of life.

Moreover, if we could dredge up something forgotten not only by ourselves but also by our whole generation or our entire civilization we should become the heroes of the day. (Campbell, 1949: 17)

What specifically, then, blocks your vision, what are the consequences of such inhibition, and how can you become unblocked?

Blocks to vision

1 To begin with, we block our vision by seeing ourselves as “down to earth and feet on the ground.” (See also chapter 5.) We get stuck, therefore, on the first rung of the ladder of learning. A desire to work hard and “go for it” overwhelms any desire for reflection. The call to adventure leads you nowhere rather than somewhere. You are too busy getting on with life to take time out to contemplate the future. Companies are too busy “getting the stuff out of the door” ...