Jesse James Garrett

“I know I need to show up with a vision here,” my client said. “I just get stuck on one question: What the heck is a vision anyway?”

It’s a common puzzle: Every leader feels bringing vision to their work is an important part of the job, but it can be hard to put your finger on the actual work of creating and communicating a vision.

A vision is a story about a different world. For leaders, a good story depicts not just a different world, but a better one. A really good story shows how that better world could become our reality. And the best stories show that whatever the next step towards that world is, big or small, we have the strength and sensitivity to take it.

A great vision encourages us—literally instilling in us the courage to believe that change for the better is possible, and to believe that we are up to the task of making that change real. This task of encouragement is one of the subtlest challenges a leader faces. But it takes more than poetic language and emotional appeals to rally a team around a vision.

Every vision is a story, which means every vision must follow the rules of story, narrative tension and resolution. But for a vision to truly motivate, it must weave in a few other key elements:

First, it must be rooted in an honest understanding of your team’s true strengths and capabilities, regardless of what they’re being asked to do now or have done in the past. A motivating vision engages your team with what they see themselves doing best, regardless of how others perceive their value.

You must be similarly honest about the team’s opportunities and potential for growth. Sometimes that growth can be activated by reshaping existing roles or moving current people into new roles. Sometimes that growth comes from new capabilities imported from outside. A motivating vision connects the team’s evolution to the larger organization’s success.

Most importantly, your vision must connect the change you are creating together with your team’s values. The impact of your outcomes must be measured against the meaning it has for the individuals on your team. It’s hard to get motivated about a vision when you can’t tell how it aligns with what you care about—or if it’s actively working against those things.

So any leader’s vision work must begin not with speaking or even thinking but simply listening: listening to what your people tell you about what they care about, and being the one to lead that conversation if it isn’t already happening.