Always Check For Leaks!

Early in chapter 13 of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, as he’s describing how important it is for a leader to provide a constant example for our teams to follow, John Maxwell says “The temptation for any leaders is to merely communicate about the vision.” Truth be told, just communicating with the team on a regular basis with even a little bit of clarity is still far more effective in gaining buy-in on an organization’s mission and purpose than hanging it on the wall or printing it on ID badges. 

But even frequent communication still presents a challenge; our team may not grasp the full understanding we need them to have from words alone. And without a crisp picture in their minds of how that purpose is achieved, there’s another risk John warns about. He says “vision has a tendency to leak.” 

Clear and ongoing communication about how each individual role ties into our organization’s mission, how it impacts the end customer we serve, can make a significant difference in how our team members understand what’s expected of them, but providing them with the opportunity to see how we want this lived out can crystallize it! John also shared that “the leader’s effective modeling of the vision makes the picture come alive!”

The last several posts have targeted our organizations’ mission statements. As you read this, you likely notice the references to both mission and vision. There tends to be a bit of confusion in the two, and they’re even used interchangeably in some cases. We’ll look at something I believe should help you clearly differentiate the two in the next post. For now though, I’ll just stress how critical it is for us to make sure we’re clear about the goals we place in front of our teams and we live an example we’d be thrilled for them to follow!

Regardless of the type of statement we’ve created, or the specific words we use in it, our responsibility to the team we lead is to model it in everything we do. I’ll wrap up today with something that may ruffle some feathers. The goal in asking you to consider what I’m about to share is to make a political statement of any kind; just to emphasize the importance of modeling the behaviors we want emulated…

I’m all of protecting the environment, conserving energy, and simply being good stewards of what we have. That said, I find it more than a little odd that the people who typically make the most noise about those things aren’t dancing to the same music. They have multiple gigantic homes when the majority or the people they’re telling to make changes have one modest home. They’re flying on a private jet while we’re being coughed on in coach. And they typically have a fleet of vehicles but preach about how we should use public transportation…

Again, let’s take the poliTICKS out of it… And I’m certainly not painting this to be the Haves vs the Have-Nots. Without the potential for great reward, the desire for any of us to work extremely hard goes out the window; and leading effectively is ALWAYS hard! What I am challenging you to consider here is just how much more effective any of those voices would be if they were actually doing what they’re saying is so critical for each of us to do… Without providing a picture of what they want us to follow, that vision is bound to have some leaks!