How was Gandhi able to lead India to independence from the British empire? How was Abraham Lincoln able to effectively abolish American slavery? How was Martin Luther King able to help lift our country from the depravity of southern racial segregation?
Traditional historians and pundits have sought to explain the successes of these fallible heroes with mundane analyses involving unique personal attributes, contextual historical antecedents, and emerging social trends.
But forget all that stuff. It’s irrelevant. Facts are always an afterthought…
Vision is the thing.
Transformational leaders are flawed humans, just like us. But, unlike most of us, they are gripped by a compelling vision. In this vision, they see a future in which the constraints and sufferings of the present moment will be completely unnecessary. Through this vision, they know that all humans are bonded eternally on a plane that defies reason, and that scarcity of any kind is always a matter of collective choice.
Vision isn’t rocket science, it isn’t brain surgery, and it isn’t wishful thinking. Vision is absolute clarity into the unseen order of things. Transformational leadership is the willingness to let that unseen order emerge by surrendering the rotting scraps of ego-comfort that would keep us in chains, that a transcendent new purpose might express itself through our humble human hands.
Authentic vision always breeds a deep sense of gratitude and awe. And I can gaurantee you that these great visionaries–Ghandi, Lincoln, MLK, Obama, and all of those who came before–have stood in wonder at the powerful forces working through them. What’s more, every single one of these transformational figures would be quick to remind us that we have the exact same power at our disposal, should we be willing to accept it
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Vision is about believing in a few difficult ideas enough to be willing to act on them: abundance, risk, change, making things better (and it being worth it to make things better).
Being a visionary leader involves having the charisma, or rhetorical skill or just good, old-fashioned authenticity to be able to bring others along to help get the action aspects done.
I used to be sad — believing that if you weren’t born with (or nurtured to have) a certain degree of charisma and to be a “connector” in the Gladwell sense, you were doomed to fail as a visionary. You’d be one of history’s admired weirdo’s at best — like William Blake or Eric Gill. But I’ve come round to thinking that part of having vision is being able to change your lot — to become, if you believe strongly enough, a leader and a disseminator of ideas. Especially as our culture and economies turn to embrace the new paradigms of connectedness and collaboration that some of us are already in love with.
well put.
I agree with you.
we all have the capacity to great leaders in our own way.
I believe that what we sometimes lack is the courage to look at things honestly, and to embrace our own path.