Tail Winds + Vision into-> Mission into-> Purpose. A world class leader understands deeply the coalescing ripples of shift across multiple sectors that result in the change their business is addressing, using this knowledge and extending it out into the future is called vision. If you can paint a good vision, you can then explain some missions people could go on over the period of time that matches your vision that results in positive things for the group, this is how an individual finds their purpose and is a prerequisite for a high functioning team (see tuckman's). The reason this is hard from a leadership perspective is that humans do not hear messages the same way, so you have to do what we call message modulation, where you tell the story many different ways depending on the constituent you're addressing until or such that, they understand what you are saying. You also have to be careful your modulation doesn't introduce confusion, 1 2 | 3 4 - if pipe is your baseline message, to be good at this, you have to think about what happens when 1 and 4 converse.
>A world class leader understands deeply the coalescing ripples of shift across multiple sectors that result in the change their business is addressing, using this knowledge and extending it out into the future is called vision.
So few leaders understand this. Its not common, not even among 'successful' leaders. More than anyone likes to admit, lots of businesses big and small built their backs on exploiting some luck and then achieving a relatively dominate position and holding it by the virtue of traditional business tactics. There's alot of copying, and very little actual innovative thinking.
This is even true of 'visionaries' but I think there is a difference between outright copying w/ refinement vs taking technology (or technologies) and using them in genuinely unforeseen ways, or otherwise marrying them together in ways nobody else really has.
Most success is entirely circumstantial. Right place, right time, things out of the control of anything. Certainly thats not visionary. Its refining someone else's idea (which is different than taking existing technology, refining it, and using it in entirely different ways than it was intended)
Steve Jobs was unique in that he forged success despite circumstances. In multiple aspects of Apple's history there was no good reason for them to succeed the way they did but he actually had genuine vision. Few others have had that kind of vision. Bill Gates demonstrated this earlier in his career (by the late 90s, Microsoft was exploiting monopoly not visionary innovation). Perhaps a few others I can't think of off the top of my head right now.
I can't say the same for 90+% of business people. It should be more humbling than it is. Unfortunately every CEO seems to think they have the 'magic' and they don't.
It's part of what separates "founder" from "executive" in my mind. Most good execs I know understand market fundamentals due to either eduction or solid experience, it's what is taught in HBS, Columbia, etc. Most founders know it from gut, they can just see change and they run at it, but it's part of the shift from founder to executive, you have to operationalize it for a business to be sustainable. Because you are competing against luck (Clay Christensen), you are inevitability foundational relying on solid vision, but because business is extremely complicated and hard to nail most businesses bleed out to find death by a 1000 paper cuts. Friend of mine has a linkedin profile you might find interesting: https://www.linkedin.com/in/agnazem/details/experience/
I'll also add, there are a lot of managers out there fancying themself in leadership, and lots of leaders who fancy themselves managers, this thinking that there is an ability to co-mingle, is generally incorrect.
(I teach business for a living, this stuff is a lot of what I teach new founders how to understand.)
Indeed, and probably why Steve got fired and had to take timeout. I break down some more nuance of it here if you're curious: https://b.h4x.zip/inventors/
I've never come across a leader with a strong corporate vision. Can you think of any relatively unknown companies that have become successful, and would you be willing to share their story?
Most of the founders and business I know you would probably also know, name a big devtool company from the 2011's era and I probably know the story well, the example I often use is my friend: https://www.linkedin.com/in/agnazem/details/experience/
- it's very easy from his linkedin to see how he thought about things. Jeff Lawson is another great example, Matthew Prince and Michelle Zatlyn also fantastic.
I'm sad you've never come across a leader with a strong corporate vision, when you work with them it truly is a joy.
Uniqueness is not the end goal, first and foremost it should be competitive. Just highlight where exactly you do things differently (and better) than others.
If that's not possible to formulate even internally, the company is in trouble.
