Inspire a Shared Vision
A leader has a plan for a better future, a passionate belief that achieving the dream will make a positive difference in the lives of the followers. Your third leadership commitment is therefore to envision the future by imagining the possibilities that will excite and enable others, unite them in a common purpose. Next, you must enlist others, your constituents. By animating the vision, you will breathe life into their hopes and dreams and appeal to your shared ideals.
Inspiring Quotes … from our collection. Will some suggest adjustments to your attitudes and behaviours?
“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery,
French novelist”
“Develop your senses, especially learn to see.
Leonardo da Vinci
from his Principles for the Development of a Complex Mind”
“I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp, in-focus picture of it in my head. First I see the ball where I want it to finish, nice and white and sitting up high on the bright green grass. Then the scene quickly changes, and I see the ball going there: its path, trajectory, and shape, even its behavior on landing. Then there is a sort of fade-out, and the next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous images into reality.
Jack Nicklaus”
“Extraordinary results flow from persistent visionaries committed to unreasonably worthy goals.
Unascribed”
“I saw an angel in the stone and carved to set it free.
Michaelangelo”
“If there is any indication that the leader is not totally committed to achieving the vision, then all the sweet talk in the world will not get people to support it.
Fred Smith
CEO, FedEx”
“I won’t see it until I believe it.
Dewitt Jones,
Photojournalist,
National Geographic Magazine ”
“If I were to wish for anything I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of what can be, for the eye, which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating as possibility?
Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or”
“No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it. We must learn to see the world anew.
Albert Einstein”
“Our focal length is always forward.
Steve Jobs 2006 interview with Brian Williams, NBC News ”
“Managers look in; leaders look out…
Managers are concerned with today; leaders are concerned with tomorrow…
Good leaders think three to five years out. Great leaders paint a picture of what the organization should look like when the current management team retires - focusing everyone’s efforts on creating a lasting, sustainable legacy.
James O’Toole”
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
Soren Kierkegaard
Danish Philosopher”
“Research is to see what everybody else
has seen, and to think what nobody else
has thought.
Albert Szent-Györgyi ”
“Positive images create positive possibilities.
Kouzes & Posner”
“Stories are easier to remember – because in many ways, stories are how we remember.
Daniel Pink, Business Author and Journalist”
“Live each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional glance toward the summit keeps the goal in mind, but many beautiful scenes are to be observed from each new vantage point. So climb slowly, enjoying each passing moment; and then the view from the summit will serve a more rewarding climax for your journey.
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen”
“Throughout history, outstanding leaders have been ordinary people with extraordinary vision - and the skills to communicate it.
Peter Urs Bender”
“The absolutely most distinguishing characteristic of a leader is that a leader is someone who takes us elsewhere.
Bob Galvin, Motorola”
“Some people go through a forest and see no firewood.
Old English Proverb”
“Plant a tree you will never see grow.
New Zealand All Blacks Rugby Team”
“Those who see unlimited potential around them will have a very different vision of the future from that of those who see limitations and constraints.
Kouzes & Posner”
“The most important thing is to have a
code of life, to know how to live. Find
yourself a port of destination.
Dr. Hans Seyle”
“The most forward-looking people
have their heads turned sideways.
Harold Innes”
“The domain of leaders is the future.
Kouzes & Posner”
“The only impossibility in this world is
gaining access to a closed mind.
Anonymous”
“The soul never thinks without a picture.
Aristotle”
“The winds and the waves are always on
the side of the ablest navigators.
Edward Gibbon”
“The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.
Thucydides”
“Understanding and belief are the first steps toward effective action.
Unascribed”
“Vision gives focus to human energy.
Kouzes & Posner”
“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.
Jonathan Swift, Anglo-Irish Satirist”
“We are all worms, but I do believe I am a glowworm.
Winston Churchill”
“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.
Joel Barker, Independent Scholar, Futurist”
“When the vision is clear, then passion and creativity are there as well.
Dewitt Jones ”
“You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
Mark Twain”
“When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.
Albert Einstein”
Experiences, thoughts, insights, perspectives, personal stories/principles/maxims, different quotes … on Inspire a Shared Vision are posted here. Want to comment and share your own? Hit the button, read the blogs, offer up some of your ‘self’! Here’s an example of what you can find on the post page:
Blog 1: Storytelling is THE most basic form of human communication. It is how we pass along lessons from generation to generation AND it is a powerful technique to help others see themselves interacting successfully in the brighter future. Storytelling is a more powerful influence on the human brain than facts and figures. People believe stories more than they believe numbers.
The renowned trail attorney Gerry Spence “the strongest structure for any argument is the story”. He goes on to illustrate the point:
“Storytelling has been the principal means by which we have taught one another from the beginning of time: the campfire. The tribal members gathered around, the little children peeping from behind the adults, their eyes as wide as dollars, listening, listening. The old man – can you hear his crackly voice, telling his stories of days gone by? Something is learned from the story – the way to surround and kill a saber-toothed tiger, the hunt for the king of the mastodons in a far-off valley, how the old man survived the storm. There are stories of love, of the discovery of special magic potions, of the evil of the warring neighborhood tribes – all learning of man has been handed down for eons in the form of stories.”
Stories teach, mobilize and motivate. Research clearly demonstrates that information is more quickly and accurately remembered when it is presented in the form of an example or a story. Gary Klein, scientist and researcher into how people make decisions under conditions of extreme emergencies, says:
“Storytelling is an essential skill for passing along the lessons that we learn from highly-complex, challenging situations.”
Well-told stories reach inside us and pull us along, much better than bulleted points on a screen. Stories give us the actual experience of being there and of learning what is really important about the experience.
Great leaders are great storytellers. We need leaders to mobilize us for our common good.