"Leadership Vision"

VALUING YOUR VISION
-- by Dr. John C. Maxwell

Where will your student organization be in three years? Next year?

Without vision, leaders can find themselves and their organization going nowhere fast. But a good vision can be the roadmap to an organization's successful destination.

There's no doubt that vision is valuable to a leader. But how valuable is it to you?

Sometimes it's easy to underestimate the value of vision until you are reminded of all that it can do for you and your organization.

Consider the following snapshots of the value of vision and make sure you haven't underestimated it's importance in your student organization:

1. VISION CHALLENGES PEOPLE.

Edwin Land, founder of Polaroid, said, "Teach your people to feel that the vision is very important and nearly impossible. That draws out the drive in winners." A vision doesn't look at the available resources and ask what can be done with them. It sees the potential and issues the challenge. Then people rally to make it happen.

2. VISION SOLVES PROBLEMS.

Problems go unsolved not because they are too big, but because a leader's vision is too small. If a problem is bigger than your dreams, it will stop you. But if your vision is greater, you will find a way to overcome it. You've probably heard it said that obstacles are the things you see when you take your eyes off the goal. If your vision is clear, problems are only speed bumps on the road to success.

3. VISION PROVIDES GUIDANCE.

Direction for an organization cannot be given through rules or organizational charts. Those types of things merely facilitate direction. True direction is birthed in the leader's vision.

4. VISION ATTRACTS WINNERS.

A Prime Minister of France once said, "If you are doing big things, you attract big people. If you are doing little things, you attract little people." The scope of your vision determines the stature of your people.

5. VISION UNITES PEOPLE.

There are differences and diversity in any organization. But dissimilar people will be united under a common vision when the vision is greater than their desire to go their own way.

6. VISION SUPPLIES ENERGY.

Do you know why so many successful people are visionaries? Because vision gives people a drive to succeed. Someone once said that only he who sees the invisible can do the impossible.

Hubert Humphrey was a man with great vision. He took his first trip to Washington D.C. in 1935, and wrote the following note to his wife: "Honey, I can see how someday, if you and I just apply ourselves and make up our minds to work for bigger and better things, we can someday live here in Washington and probably be in government, politics, or service . . . . Oh gosh, I hope my dreams come true - I'm going to try, anyhow."

Hubert Humphry's vision carried him all the way to the second highest office in the land. Where is your vision carrying you? Where will it take your organization?