Sharing a vision for success

- First, the team needs to know where it's going. What is the shared vision? We are naturally pack animals, we want to be members of a pack, and we're also goal seeking animals. We love to have a quest, and we are united by having a quest. We forget all our petty differences when we're moving forwards on our quest together. Probably, the two most important jobs of the leader are to select the right mix of people, as we'll see in the next section, and then to show us the goal that we're going to achieve together, and then, off we go.

Even if you're not the top leader of the company, but are a manager of just a small part of it, you still need to have a vision for your part of it. How can your department be great? How can it move a little bit closer towards greatness this year? And as a team player, you can contribute to the ideas for how the team can be great. It doesn't have to all come from your boss, and it's not good enough to just sit there and complain that your boss hasn't generated an exciting enough vision. You're in the team too remember.

You can also help the boss to articulate the vision. Often, because they're busy, or haven't really thought about the importance of it, they don't tell the team what the plan is, or at least not what the bigger picture is, only what you need to know for your bit. But we do need to know where we fit into the bigger picture in order to have a real sense of purpose, and you can help everyone in the team by asking your boss about this. So, I'd like you to ask yourself how clearly do you see where your team is going at the moment? And have you asked your boss about the vision for the team? And finally, do you have any of your own suggestions about where the team should be going?