The Business Coaching Toolkit

CHAPTER ONE

Developing a Leadership Vision

(It’s not What You Think!)

 

 

 

Look at any list of great leaders of the twentieth century, and you will find these five people at the top:

• Mohandas Gandhi

• Nelson Mandela

• Mother Teresa

• Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Franklin Roosevelt

At first blush, these people had more things not in common with one another than they had in common. They came from vastly different parts of the world: India, Africa, Germany, and the United States. They had different religious viewpoints: two were Protestants, one a Hindu, and one a Catholic. And they had vastly different economic and educational backgrounds.

Yet each one of these leaders started movements that still exist today and delivered sustainable results that any executive would envy. How? By the one thing they did have in common with one another: commitment to a cause. Deep in their soul was a vision for what they believed in and a dedication to see that vision lived in real, tangible ways. Although Martin Luther King, Jr. was the only orator of the group, “I have a dream . . .” could be words that introduce each of these five’s life’s work.

We tend to think of vision differently in business, and that is not a good thing. Too often we define a “good leader” simply as someone who sets a big, measurable goal for a company. The problem is an organization may meet the goal but not grow in its character, undermining the ability for continued goal achievement. In others words, goals, as important as they ...