Manila, 29 January 2020 — Keeping your vision to yourself? Take three steps for doing better. 

What if Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela had worked on their vision and then kept it private for themselves to look at once a month or year. What would be the result for you and me?

Now repeat that question for _________ and insert the name of a person who has inspired you for your leadership.

Without the inspiration from these role models, we would be out ‘in the cold’ fending for ourselves, right? We wouldn’t have the benefit of their words and behaviors to inspire us as we step forward on our leadership journey. So what does that tell you about leaders and their leadership vision? They work it. Not just ‘on it’—they work it with people around them.

Earlier, we looked at Three Vision Mistakes, and then at Three Steps to Unblock Your Vision. Members in our Grow3Leaders community also have Three Vision Tools to help them create their vision. In this post, let’s look at how leaders work their leadership vision, which is one of the 12 leadership behaviors we learn and practice in Grow3Leaders.

Leaders do three things when they work their vision: they create it, inhabit it, and share it. Let’s explore each of these.

Step 1. Create (See)

First, creating your vision the right way is not a one-time activity. It’s a process, so you need to work on it regularly, and revisit and update your vision as you go and learn more from your leadership practice. In terms of frequency, I’d recommend to check-in with your vision regularly, like at least once a month. Update and expand it further as necessary and as you gain experience. 

In creating their vision, leaders consciously decide to step up and Play a Bigger Game. That’s why you often see leaders being high achievers with a big vision. They are change-makers, and you don’t get there by playing a small or medium game. Courage is needed to step up. Expanding their work to play a Bigger Game is a behavior that we see leaders show up with regularly. A behavior to emulate. It’s part of what I call working in your Observed World. See the diagram below. 

With that reminder, make sure that your vision for your leadership is Big. Get out of the mediocre game. That’s why it’s so important to work first on unblocking your vision from the self-imposed limitations that hold you back.

Step 2: Inhabit (Feel)

Second, after creating their vision, leaders work to inhabit their vision. You do this in your Personal World that is private to you. The keyword here is ‘feel,’ and celebrating your vision helps you get there, to lean into it. As researchers Kotter and Cohen discovered and wrote about in The Heart of Change, the process of influencing people to change requires that they See the need first, then Feel the need, and only then are they ready for a Change to happen. See-Feel-Change, in that order. Thinking and analyzing won’t get you there.

We are no different.

For your leadership vision to inspire others, you have to see and feel it first, before you can expect others to see and feel it. It’s an important step, primarily to allow yourself enough space and confidence to inhabit your vision, even if it still looks too big from the point of view of your past experience. Your mindset matters, therefore. Your own transformation and evolution matter, as you overcome your self-limiting beliefs and blocks. That’s why this dimension of leadership is called an Inside Job. Only you can do that, and that experience is gained in the privacy of your Personal World. 

Working on your vision as an Inside Job will cause your behavior in public to grow more and more congruent with your vision.

Step 3: Share (Commit)

Third, once you have your vision created and you have practiced what it feels like to inhabit that vision, it’s time to step out of your Personal World and into your Social World. This third step is to share it with other people around you. It’s not enough to See and Feel your Vision—now is the time for the all-important third step: to come out with it. Here’s where leadership becomes a Contact Sport that you play with others.

Stepping out with your vision has several benefits, and an important one is the feedback and support you can ask to get from people you trust enough to help you. You can also ask people to join you in your vision! Furthermore, sharing your vision with others will help you articulate your vision in language that people can relate to. Gandhi, MLK, Mandela, and others became more compelling in sharing their vision through lots of practice.

As you practice, you also get the benefit of consolidating your own understanding and ownership of your vision. It will grow on you. And, finally, sharing your vision will make you accountable to work on its implementation. We all need help in that area, and it will help you to align your leadership behaviors in the workplace to make them congruent with what you stand for. 

Through these steps, your vision will evolve from a dream inside you. It will become more clear and start turning into action, together with people you work with. The keyword in this third step is to Speak Up! Just like we touched on in our opening questions. By speaking up, you create the possibility that people will be inspired and join you in believing in your vision and in turning it into reality. If, on the other hand, you keep your vision to yourself, nothing much will happen.

Learning Together

There you have it, what leaders do to work on their leadership vision, regularly and frequently. They work on the vision, on themselves, and on people around them.

All of this is easier done together with others than attempting to do it all by yourself. And it’s more fun too when done together. If that appeals to you, consider joining our private Grow3Leaders community. Request your invitation here. It’s not for everyone, so check if it will be a good fit. Joining is free of charge—not free of commitment (there is that word again).