Personal vision: Individual and inspiring!
Vision, as a future aimed at with passion, has the power to bring the authority of executives to bear. Thus potentials on different levels are opened. What it requires, however, is: Room for thinking!
The strength of personal vision:
What does it in fact need to move forward, to move itself and a team? It needs a conception of the future to which I can say, Yes. Future, which inspires me, where I see fulfillment, which also excludes the insignificant. People as execyutives do not only define themselves by incomes, status and power. They look for a superordinate meaning and a sense in life as holistic people. The clarity and conviction of personal vision enables executives in difficult times, with centeredness, to master their tasks. Executives, who do not have clear vision, are, during processes of change, without orientation, and less able to unfold their potential. Fears and uncertainties block their action and they have more difficulties in arranging a direction for employees and assisting them. Deep within themselves, each person has a vision. It requires high levels of self-responsibility and sometimes courage to recognize it. The implementation of personal vision challenges people to analyze and plumb their abilities and possibilities again and again.
Inspire instead of motivate
From personal vision, internal fire develops. People with »feu sacré« inspire others and stand with devotion and passion for their action and work. They feed the inner fire with faith in their vision, and in doing such, executives who are aligned to it are trustworthy and authentic to their employees. If we put theories and models aside which were devised in the area of leadership, then a characteristic remains which forms the core of outstanding leadership qualities. What do great leading-personalities do? They inspire, they bring enthusiasm! What moved people to dedicate themselves with passion to the visions of Confucius, Mahatma Ghandi, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela? They were inspired - far more than only motivated. We know that Martin Luther King did not say »I have a strategy!« He cried: »I have a dream!« These great leaders reached and affected the hearts and souls of people – and thereby moved them. They did not have to lead with motivation-concepts and quality assurance systems. They lived their convictions, dreams and visions as inspiring models.
The power of business vision
Inspiration and enthusiasm are conditions, which we all wish for ourselves. People and teams, who are enthusiastic and inspired, move on another level. They are extremely effective. Successful businesses have a movement and a focused vision. This is not sufficient however. Peter Senge and his team from M.I.T., USA, have made a large contribution with the description of 5 disciplines to understand »learning organization«. Personal Mastery explores the personal vision of individual executives, among other things, as core discipline. Only the cooperation of personal vision with the vision of the corporation and the permanent analysis of the mental models of the organization, along with team cooperation makes possible an opening of synergies and potentials with leverage.
Leadership as meeting
The study of leadership styles brought us to the fact that we apply much energy toward aspects like »leadership should be done«, as well as on mechanics - instead of on the essence of leadership. Or figuratively put: on the technical data of the sunset instead of on the joy, the beauty and the experience of the sunset.
Many training concepts for executives are today still aligned with tools and instruments of control. The most important tool remains however »people«. Albert Schweitzer wrote: »if you want to lead people you must believe in them.« And that means thus: if a manager wants to believe in people, he must actually believe in himself. And if he wants to actually believe in himself, he must know his own internal fire, deeper desires and longings - and have notion of his own potential. We therefore attach great importance as an advisory group on cultivation of people and self-realization as the basis for leadership training. Recognizing personal vision includes exploring patterns and mental maps. We effectively assist executives in arranging their leadership relations with the attainment of fixed goals. Co-operation with courageous and innovative KMU's and internationally active large-scale businesses has shown us that the staying power of leadership training courses works particularly through people and less over instruments. It has been worthwhile again and again for all sides to become conscious of values and convictions and to let these flow consistently into business strategies and development programs.
Thinking requires leisure
We live in the fast lane. The illusion of speed lets us rush forward and burn out in the vocational as well as in the private arena. The many mergers, aqcuisitions and other reorganizations produce competitive pressure, pressure of speed, and adjustment pressure! Where then lies reflection? We are convinced that only by continuous reflection on our own leadership behavior, by learning with "sharing best practice", by learning from errors, by position-fixing, which also feed internal fire and personal vision, executives are able to give their best over a longer duration. Stopping and reflecting lets us become paradoxically faster: we are more decisive, we communicate more clearly, we lead discussions more efficiently, because we can concentrate on the more substantial and on the goals. For this clarity and focus however, there needs to be, in business, spaces for thinking and common learning. Such reflection islands should be put ever more at the disposal of executives and employees. Reflection islands can be »in-house« as well as outside of the workplace: dialogue groups, coaching circles, creation of values through value estimation, collegial consultation, advice from more knowledgeable persons, retreats in nature, examinations. What can take place on these islands? Thinking, learning through best practice, learning from mistakes, meetings in genuine dialogues, allowing emergence new things, future »pre-thinking« etc.. And last but not least, personal visions are found in these creative pauses. All of this is ultimately sustenance for inspired people, teams and enterprises.