Engaged Leadership: Building a Culture to Overcome Employee Disengagement, 2nd Edition

Directional Leadership

Some people are wonderful with details. They can take an incredible vision, break it down into bite-sized pieces, and identify a laundry list of tasks to be completed in order to realize the vision. I do everything I can to surround myself with these people, because I am not one of them.

I've had some moments of analysis paralysis where I consumed every detail of a project. But for the most part, I'm more a big-picture guy. I leave the details to someone else.

I've worked for companies of different sizes. I've worked as a front-line manager for a huge company, where the vision was decided at levels far beyond mine. I've worked as an executive for a midsized company, where the vision was decided by the chairman of the board. And I've worked as the principal of a consulting firm small enough to fit into your living room, where I was an integral part of creating the vision.

While each scenario was different, one aspect remained the same in each organization. The people responsible for carrying out the vision wanted to know what the vision was. They wanted to know how what they accomplished in their job contributed to the overall direction of the company. They wanted to be a part of something big.

This is the start of a wonderful thing. A vision has been created by those with the responsibility for setting the direction of the company. The employees responsible ...