Leadership: Build Ownership of the Vision

Amos 3:3. “Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?”

I am a regular at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit that is held every August, broadcast via satellite to sites all over the world. I highly recommend it. Last year I was hit between the eyes when a speaker talked about the importance of the team owning the vision. Before then, I had operated under the idea that it is the leader’s job to identify and articulate the vision, which in turn hopefully guides and motivates the team.

A couple of new ideas started floating around in my head:
– People desire input; they want to contribute on the ground floor to something big; they desire ownership
– People want to see themselves and their personal vision in the bigger vision of the organization; they want to connect their dream to the organization

The verse above poses a rhetorical “no duh” question. The point is simple. If you want your team to follow you (or walk with you), they need to be in agreement with the destination. If you allow them a voice in the process of where to go (not a vote, but a voice!), you gain their enthusiasm and buy-in. People support what they help create.

I bring my Straight Path team to the Summit each year and we all got excited by this. It began a process that lasted over several months and consisted of a number of team meetings to talk about vision. I was a little nervous that they would come up with something different than I had. But the process was great, the resulting vision was better but not significantly different than mine, and everyone was jazzed up. It was truly a big win! Now you go get your team’s input on vision!