In order to transform your organization, you’ll have to build a foundation on leadership. As leadership expert John Maxwell reminds us, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.” Before leaders are able to change their culture to create community in their organization, they must first learn to be better leaders. Leadership is effectively communicating your vision.
Phenomenal leadership is creating a community experience that inspires the team to implement. In order to accomplish that, leaders need two things: we must have a meaningful, compelling vision, and we must learn to communicate well.
In their phenomenal book Beyond Entrepreneurship—Turning Your Business into an Enduring Great Company, Jim Collins and the late William C. Lazier underscore the need for communication. They point out an unfortunate fact: many company leaders don’t communicate. Not that they can’t—they just don’t. Collins and Lazier have a lot to say about vision:
- Vision forms the basis of extraordinary human effort.
- Vision provides a context for strategic and tactical decisions.
- Shared vision creates cohesion, teamwork, and community.
- Vision lays the groundwork for the company to evolve past dependence on a few key individuals.
Finally, they say that “to become great, . . . a company must progress past excessive dependence on one or a few key individuals. The vision must become shared as a community.”
How effective is communication in your business? Is your business a community?
