When I was young, I lived on a farm. We raised chickens.

It’s hard to herd chickens.

You really can’t. If you try, they just scatter.

Instead, you give them a common focus (usually food) and they’ll all come.

It’s simple and reliable solution.

As a leader, you don’t want to herd chickens. You aren’t in the chicken herding business. So, why does it sometimes feel like that’s what you are doing?

Because those you lead don’t have a common focus. They don’t share the same vision.

You haven’t inspired it. Yet.

But you will. Here is how.

What is a Shared Vision and Why Does it Matter?

A vision is a mental picture of the future. It matters.

An inspirational vision is one that taps into people’s intrinsic motivation. Usually a desire to gain (or not lose) a greater sense of:

• Feeling financially, relationally, physically or otherwise safe, secure and stable.
• Feeling like you are a person of value, you bring value to others and are recognized by others for this value.
• Feeling peace, contentment and happiness – usually in

Whatever the vision is – if people see and believe that getting there helps them increase or protect these core motivations – they’ll pursue it.

When everyone has the same vision, the same mental picture of the future magical things happen:

• You tap into motivation. This increases commitment and performance.
• Alignment is easier. This also increases performance and decreases conflict.
• Management easier. Everyone knows where to end up. They can use their own problem-solving abilities – as opposed to waiting to be told what to do.

I worked with a partner in a company who had a great vision and great ideas. But they weren’t shared by his other partners. He was enormously frustrated by this.

His partners were also frustrated. They felt like they were being accused of failing a vision that they never saw or committed to.

His vision was clear. It was needed. But vision alone isn’t enough.

His leadership task is the process of learning to inspire his partners to develop a shared vision. When he accepts that, he’ll find work (and life) will be much easier.

Self-Leadership – Personal Vision

The ability to inspire a shared vision is a critical leadership ability. The only way to lead effectively is to be able to do this.

For some people, developing a personal sense of vision happens naturally. They always have ideas. They can’t help it. For them – the challenge is how to inspire and to create a shared vision.

For others, a personal sense of vision doesn’t happen as easily. To a limited degree, this is influenced by personality. But there are visionary people of any kind of personality.

Primarily, the ability to “see” a desirable future has a lot to do with an individual’s sense of self-confidence or self-efficacy.

We tend to “dream” to our level of self-efficacy. Whether accurate or not – if I believe I can do things, I’ll envision myself doing them. If I don’t believe I can do things, I tend to not think about them.

As a result, a leader needs to become excellent at developing his or her own ability to lead. Here are three tips:

1. Keep the promises you make to yourself. Self-confidence is built through building self-efficacy. Ed Mylett, a business thinker from the financial world, often says that we build our self-confidence by keeping the promises we make to ourselves.

This is as simple as actually getting up and going to the gym. Not eating the extra donut. Getting the project done today instead of “later.” Having that conversation that you need to have.

The more consistently you keep the small promises, the easier it is to make (and keep) the larger ones.

As you make and keep larger and larger promises to yourself, the larger you will naturally start to dream – or envision.

2. Practicing Gratitude and Appreciation. Fear and anger are the two primary inhibitors of successful leadership. Both fear and anger are secondary emotions – propelled by something else underneath.

But you can displace both by practicing gratitude. It is impossible to stay afraid or angry when you are identifying what you are grateful for.

When you practice appreciation, you are identifying good things in others or in the environment around you. This may often be something good, or wonderful, or just nice that doesn’t directly benefit you. But it’s there.

As you learn to appreciate you are teaching yourself to see what is “good.” As Zig Ziglar used to say, “Anyone can be a fault finder. I want to be a good finder.”

The more you can see good, and be grateful for the good that you experience, the easier it is for you to imagine future good for yourself and others. Future good = a potentially inspiring vision.

• Identify three things, daily, that you are grateful for.
• Tell someone something that you appreciate about them, daily.

These habits will shape your perspective, and you will more naturally be able to inspire a shared sense of vision.

3. Helping Others “See”: Building on Strengths

Most people tend to focus on what they don’t like or aren’t happy about their job, their hair, their relationships, politics, other drivers, etc.

As a result, they are reactive.

When leaders primarily focus on what they don’t like, frustrations, offenses, things that are preventing them from doing what they want – they aren’t leading.

They are reacting.

An inspirational leader will nurture, train, reinforce and encourage an appreciative mindset in others. This leader will help others identify where they’ve succeeded, accomplished, won, brought value or did something well.

This leader will also tell stories (and find the stories) of success from those they lead.

This does two things:

• It helps other build their sense of self-confidence and self-efficacy. It reminds them that they have succeeded, they’ve overcome challenges, they’ve solved problems in the past. They can do so in the future.
• It begins to displace the fear and anger that can become a “default setting” for many people.

A leader who wants to inspire a shared vision begins by appreciating and helping other recognize past shared successes.

Methods of developing Vision

There are two basic methods of developing a shared vision. Both have pros and cons. Both tend to work better together.

• Vision Casting: Vision casting is the classic method that most people think about, when they think of inspirational leaders. Effective vision casting happens when a credible leader has a vision for the future that taps into the shared aspirations of others. It’s a great idea, which when communicated, other people say, “Yes – I want that!”
  • Pros: It is faster. It’s great for emergencies or urgent situations. It’s critical when the leader or leadership team functionally retains the real power in a situation (for example the owner of a private company.)
  • Cons: It is often harder to get ownership. People tend to say, “Yes – I want that! You go ahead and do that for us!” Due to lack of ownership, these visions are often less sustainable in the long term.

• Vision Gathering: Vision gathering is a process of listening to the shared interests, aspirations and concerns of others. Then working with them to develop a picture of the future that meets those shared interests, aspirations and concerns. It is usually the best approach when leadership has limited power and in situations where there is a need for long-term commitment.
  • Pros: Vision gathering tends to “stick.” The process created buy-in and ownership. It doesn’t require that any particular leader have the vision – so anyone can do it. It’s what I do when I help clients develop their vision.
  • Cons: It takes more time, upfront. It is less predictable or controllable. It requires a high level of skill to be able to guide a group of people through difficult conversation to consensus – without creating a flavorless, meaningless “vision by committee.” Which is what almost everyone does.

The best answer is usually a combination of the two. Leaders need to be careful to listen to the group. The group often needs a leader to help them think even larger and get unstuck from endless dithering.

The Formula for a Shared Vision:  Credibility, Shared Aspirations and Ownership

To effectively inspire a shared vision and lead it to reality you need three things: Credibility, Shared Aspirations and Ownership.

The leader needs to be credible. To be trusted.

Those being led need to believe that their aspirations will be met through pursuing this vision.

Everyone needs to own and be committed to seeing it through.

• Credibility + shared aspirations – ownership = An unsustainable pursuit.
• Shared aspirations + ownership – credibility = Reserved and negotiated engagement.
• Ownership + credibility – shared aspirations = No inspiration or motivation.

Would you like to assess the strength of your Shared Vision Formula? Download a quick tool here.

Would you like a simple Shared Vision facilitation guide? Download the guide here.

Take good care,

Christian