LEADERSHIP SIMPLIFIED SERIES
I hope that you have began the journey of discovering what your purpose is. This week, we will start on another personal management principle for leadership which is vision.
One thing that is certain is that effective leaders are visionary and this is because where there is no vision, there is often disaster. In fact John Maxwell in his book Developing The Leader Within You 2.0 states that “the indispensable quality of leadership is vision”. Vision is what often sets the direction for where a leader wants to take first themselves and then their team. My favourite definition of the word vision comes from Jonathan Swift who stated that “vision is seeing what is invisible to others”. Leaders with vision are able to do what Stephen Covey in his book the 7 habits of highly effective people refers to as the habit of beginning with the end in mind. According to Covey, “we can use our imagination to develop a vision of what we want to become. We then use our conscience to decide what values will guide us as we work towards that vision”. Leroy Eims the author of the book Be the Leader You Were Meant to Be, agrees with Covey and defines a leader as follows “a leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others do”.
Beginning with the end in mind and seeing more before others requires clarity. Allow me to add that as leaders in the 21st century we also need to remain focused on the visions we have seen. It is easy for one to get a clear vision but because of the many shinning objects and voices we have today, one is bound to lose focus of their more and before and when they finally reach the finish line, what they have before them is very different from the more and before that they saw.
Seeing more before others requires that leaders believe even when the circumstances before them are contrary to what they may be seeing. It entails holding on to the vision especially when the going gets tough. It calls for choosing faith over the fears, habits, and distractions that may seek to hold us back from acting on what we have seen.
Allow me to use a personal story to bring this point home. We all recall what happened in the year 2020. The Covid 19 pandemic affected us all in different ways. My friend and business partner, Betty Ogiel gave me a challenge. She said as Maxwell Leadership Coaches we have a lot of information and we needed to find a way to serve the communities we live and operate in using this information. She suggested that I think of how we can have an annual event that will serve women so that they can grow in their leadership.
Being a person of faith, I prayed, and I clearly received a vision to start what is now The Africa Women Leadership Summit. At the time, Betty and I thought this summit would serve women on the African Continent. However, when I got on to a call at 2:00am CAT with one of our mentors who lives in the USA, Dr. Gloria Burgess listened to our vision and then she helped us see more and more before. Dr. Gloria asked if I was aware that there are some women who may not be on the African Continent but would want to be part of this summit. In October 2021 when we advertised the first summit under the theme Be More Do Less, five days to the summit we had only 5 paid up members. I was discouraged and wanted to postpone the summit, Betty would hear none of that she insisted that we serve the ladies God would bring our way and that year we served over twenty ladies. Last year the number of participants more than doubled when we held AWLS2022 under the theme A Seat at The Leadership Table. This year by God’s grace, we will again open the doors in September for AWLS2023 under the theme Dare to Be Different. Although we are yet to experience the more and more before that we saw in 2020 when we got the vision, we believe that as we move forward, we will see God manifest what He revealed to us. Today, we continue to receive testimonies of the impact that this summit is having among the participants.
As leaders, when we see more before we are given an opportunity to see what is ahead so that we can begin preparations today. That is the reason why we need to always treat today as a masterpiece and make it count.
This week, our first reflection question is to ask whether we have written down the visions that we have seen but they are still invisible to others?
As we move towards the manifestation of these visions, it is imperative that we avoid making big declarations and instead make small intentional changes that will lead us to the fruition of our visions.
In view of this, the next reflection question is for us to ponder what steps we will begin to take that will lead us towards the vision we have for ourselves first and then for our followers?
The author, Rosette Wamambe is a transformational leadership coach with the Maxwell Certified Leadership Team. You can contact her for a complimentary Coaching session at www.fulfilledlifenetwork.com/Coaching