Everyone loves visionary leaders.

Leadership books and Twitter feeds are filled with references to the Steve Jobs and Elon Musks of the world.  The eclectic lone ranger who builds something from nothing and bravely leads us into the future.

To be an entrepreneur – even a failed one – is a badge of honour today.

Less and less people seem to be ok with working for someone else their whole lives.  40% of Millenials and 53% of Gen Z chose freelance work in the last year rather than the usual 9-5.

There is this perception out there that real leaders don’t work for somebody else.

I get it.  There is an undeniable connection between leadership and vision.  People follow those who inspire them with hope for a better future.  And without followers, you’re not a leader.

But there’s a problem.

The majority of people in the workforce today do not have the position or the opportunity to help create the vision for their organization.

 

Living in someone else’s world

It is said that we support the worlds we help create, yet we are constantly living in worlds that were built by others.

As a leader, what are my options here?  I can:

• Get in line and parrot the official statement (fake it till you make it).
• Become resentful and passive-aggressively undermine upper management’s direction.
• Create my own vision that I genuinely do get excited about, but might have nothing to do with the organizational vision.

These are options I see people take all the time.  It never goes well.

Nobody wins in these scenarios.  We slowly end up with a job we hate, and the organization becomes more chaotic and less efficient as people either skate by on the bare minimum or chase after pet projects.

We’ve spent so much energy trying to help leaders create their own vision that we’ve completely forgotten to teach them about what to do when there is already a vision in place.

We’ve written books and trained leaders on how to cast vision but have overlooked the equally important skill of learning how to catch vision.

 

Vision Catchers

Typically, we place the responsibility on leaders to convince us of their vision and then blame them if we never get enthused over it.  We expect leaders to be charismatic and cast vision in a way that grabs us.

But what if the responsibility doesn’t just lie with them?  What if it’s actually our job to catch the vision – to interpret it and to wrestle with it until it becomes our own?

Our inability to get on board with our organization’s vision may say more about us than it does about those leading us.

See, great leaders don’t wait till they’re at the top to lead.  They don’t wait to get that promotion or to start their own thing; they find a way to lead right where they are.  It may not be their vision statement up on the wall, but they’re leading people forward anyway.

Just because you didn’t create it doesn’t mean you can’t cast it.

As the size of an organization continues to grow, catching vision becomes an increasingly crucial skill to hone.  Our ability to advance in our careers and experience new opportunities may depend on it.

Business leaders want to work with and promote those who are self-motivated – those who just “get it.”

Ask any employer: what they are really hoping for are employees who act like owners.  They’re looking for someone who takes responsibility for the success of the organization and is aligned with where they’re going.

 

Finding a vision worth pursuing

Our Western culture is not very helpful in this regard.

The values of individualism and independence have created a focus on pioneers and visionaries, causing many of us to feel like second-tier humans if we follow someone else’s lead.  We can believe that we’re failing unless we chart our own path and bring some new thing into the world.

Do we all need our own vision of the future, though?

Sometimes, one person’s dream is big enough for a multitude.  Think about how many people needed to catch Walt Disney’s vision in order to make Disney World a reality.  While we may be enamoured with the guy at the top, it took tens of thousands of people over many years to bring the Disney vision to life.

Was Walt important?  Absolutely.  But without everyone else, history would have quickly forgotten the man who drew cartoon mice.

We may write books about the dreamers, but the world is built by dream catchers. Share on X

If a vision is worth pursuing, it doesn’t matter whose it is.

But again, the challenge is learning how to get behind something that we didn’t create.  Do we just have to fake it, or is there a better way?

I think we’re much more in control of which visions we catch, and which ones we don’t, than we may like to think.  I believe it’s a process that can be learned.

Here are a few tips I’ve discovered on how to get behind a vision and make it your own:

 

Translate it into your own language

Owning a vision is a process, not unlike learning a new language.

When I was in college, I lived with a Brazilian family for a month who spoke no English.  I needed to learn Portuguese ASAP.

Learning a new language as an adult is not liking learning a language as a child.  As an adult, I inevitably tried to understand Portuguese words by comparing them to the English words I already knew (“obrigado” = “thank you”).

Like languages, we understand new concepts once we can put them into our own words.

Our goal, then, is to be able to translate someone else’s vision into words and ideas that resonate with us.  We want to be able to paraphrase and articulate the vision so clearly that we can explain it to somebody else in a way that makes sense.  Practice communicating it in a short 15-second elevator ride or a longer conversation over a cup of coffee.

It’s one thing to memorize the official statement out of your employee handbook. It’s entirely another to be able to teach it to someone else.

If you want to own a vision, you have to start talking about it.  Start writing about it.  Make a goal to try and reference it in a conversation, meeting, or email once a week.

As communications expert, Eric Eisenberg said,

“Changing how we think requires changing how we speak.”

 

Keep asking questions

In this first stage of catching vision, the goal is simply understanding.  You don’t need to come out of the gate being super excited about where the company is going.

Passion follows understanding.

Understanding requires us to dig in and ask a lot of questions.  If a vision doesn’t make sense to you right away, lean in and listen to those who have caught it.  What meaning and significance does it have for them?  Why does it motivate them to keep going?  Practice empathy and try to feel what they feel and see what they see.

If your boss is trying to explain the “why” behind a particular project and you just don’t get it, say something.  You’re never the only one in the room who is a little confused.

In the end, it’s nobody else’s responsibility to make sure that we’re aligned with our team.  Managers won’t endlessly stop and ask if anybody has any questions, so it’s our job to speak up and fight for our understanding.

Too many people never engage in this process, and they continue to grind away for a paycheque week after week, failing to see why any of it matters.

 

Act your way into the vision

I’ve never played lacrosse.  Not coincidentally, I have no vision for anything lacrosse-related.  I’m not going to sign up to coach or mentor young lacrosse players or lobby the government for increased funding for lacrosse spaces (fields?).  But some people do.  Some people are very passionate about it – the ones who have actually played lacrosse.

We generally don’t get passionate about something and then decide to do it; we do something and then become passionate about it.

If passion follows understanding, understanding follows action.

In other words, we often change our actions before we change our minds.

            We often need to change our actions before we can change our minds. Share on X

Partly, this is because we’re very good at justifying what we’ve already done.  Our subconscious minds are exceptionally well-equipped to rationalize our behaviour and convince us that what we’ve been doing hasn’t been a waste of time.

So, if you want to start believing something, act as though it’s true and let your unconscious do the rest.

Harvard psychiatrist, John Ratey, reveals a strong link between our actions and the development of new brain cells and enhanced learning.  He points out that, in many ways, movement is thinking.  When we were children, our brains developed in response to our physical interactions with the world.  As it turns out, this is still true for adults.

Our brains change, develop, and form new connections in response to our actions.

If actions change us, then it makes sense that the actions we do the most will change us the most.  Habits, routines and rituals have a powerful way of reinforcing our perceptions of the world.  One of the reasons that so many people decide to change worldviews when they’re in college is because they’re no longer acting out the rhythms and rituals of their upbringing.

A change in habits slowly brings about a change in mind.

In regard to vision catching, try adjusting your daily, weekly, and monthly schedule so that vision-related tasks are regularly on the calendar.

Remember: You likely won’t experience epiphanies, dreams, or visions for things that you’re not already involved in.

Action precedes passion.

 

Create a sub-vision

Lastly, one of the ways you can catch vision is to create your own.  I know this sounds like cheating, but sometimes the best way to support the larger vision is to create a smaller one that feeds into it.

In other words, identify a vision for your role or your department that, if completed, helps accomplish the broader vision as well.

This is a way of personalizing the vision and allowing you to buy into something that is uniquely yours.

Just be careful that you don’t go too far and end up creating your own standalone vision that has nothing to do with the bigger picture.

 

If all else fails

If you really can’t get behind the vision of your organization, even after trying some of these steps for a while, you need to consider whether this is the right place for you.

Too many people are in jobs where they’re not actively working towards the future that the organization is striving for.  We convince ourselves that it’s ok.  As long as we’re not actively working against it, we’re fine, right?

The problem is that this type of passivity spreads.  Before long, you have a sizeable chunk of people on the team who are going through the motions of their job but aren’t actually concerned about moving the organization forward.  Not only is that detrimental to the organization, but it’ll suck the life out of you too.

 

Final thoughts

Not every vision is worth catching.  If it’s really not for you, don’t feel bad about moving on.

But don’t write it off too quickly, either.

You likely won’t be enamoured with a particular vision when you first hear it.  This is natural.  But if you can remain open and try to withhold judgment, you may be surprised to find some new passion growing up inside of you.

I’m not saying we don’t need the dreamers and visionaries.  We do.  We need originality.  We need people who paint inspiring pictures of a preferred future.

But we also need to celebrate all those who come alongside these visionaries and actually build those futures.

 

Are you struggling to find meaning in your context?

Not only is vision catching critical to the success of your organization, but it can also help you find meaning and significance in your current job.  Work is a lot more fun when you can see why it matters.

If you’re having a hard time grasping the “why” behind your work and get the feeling that you could be getting more out of your career, you’re probably right.

According to a recent study,

“Eighty-four percent of workers are merely “coming to work” and are not contributing fully to their organizations.”

This makes sense once you realize that the majority of people are not in their career as a result of conscious choice – they just sort of fell into it. 

If you’re feeling a little “meh” about your career, you’re not alone.

Working with a career coach can help.  Two-thirds of working adults wished they had sought out some career guidance earlier in their life.

If you need to clarify what you want out of your work, what you offer, and what your next step is, send me a message.  I am opening up a couple of coaching slots for Summer 2020 and would love to chat with you.  The first session is free.  Let’s find your sweet spot.

Thanks for being here,

Dan