Leadership Lessons: Creating an Organizational Vision: Playing the Long Game

Maintaining the status quo is an organizational death sentence. To prevent this, an organizational vision that communicates the leaders’ strategic intent and points to the direction in which the organization is moving must be identified. It must be both general and abstract. It must motivate.

Like a revelation from a dream, the organizational vision leads, guides and pulls teams toward shared hopes, dreams and expectations. However, as Lee Bolman, who is the co-author of “Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice and Leadership” (Jossey-Bass), said, “A vision without a strategy remains an illusion.” A compelling vision entices energy, effort and resources and feeds innovation. It inspires people to leap into the challenge and explore their abilities and potential. It provides a framework for strategies, measures and goals.

What is an organizational vision?
In simple terms, an organizational vision is an aspirational description of what an organization wants to achieve or accomplish in the midterm and long term. It’s intended to serve as a clear guide for choosing current and future courses of action.

Leadership expert Burt Nanus cites five key aspects of an organization’s vision: challenging; broad and comprehensive; clear sense of direction; society references; and makes a declaration about a future state.

A challenging vision should go beyond what’s happening and encourage people to grow.

A broad and comprehensive vision addresses the organization’s business, customer support, employee well-being, leadership and performance. It’s a holistic view that’s pursuable through varied means and in other possible states and conditions. That said, it should help to direct and shape the future of the organization.

Clear sense of direction applies to the members of the leadership team knowing the “why” of what they are working to create. For an organization to be effective and successful, it must aim at a desirable end state. Organizational goals should challenge the members of the leadership team to always excel.

In regard to society references, an organizational vision focuses internally and refers to the community and its changing needs.

Finally, to drive actions and serve as a direction guide, the ultimate destination for an organization—its future state—must be evident in the organizational vision statement. By incorporating the perspectives of key constituents, an organizational vision that truly represents the agency can be crafted. This process, although challenging, can be facilitated by an experienced professional in vision development and strategic planning. In line with current trends in professional fire departments, involving department members in the development process not only fosters their commitment to the organizational vision but also makes it their own, rather than just a directive from senior leadership.

Crucially, the organizational vision must be shared with all members of the department. This is the cornerstone of success. Every individual who is in the department should be able to envision the new future.

Key influencers
The process of moving an organization from a current state to a desired state is a delicate balance. Leadership must pay attention to the principles of change management theory (e.g., John Kotter’s eight-step model).

The effort is a shared priority for all who are in leadership roles, including company officers, chief officers, union representatives, to understand and embrace the purpose of the organizational vision. If these individuals aren’t enthusiastic about the future that the department identified, and if they aren’t willing to commit to positive action to help to bring the vision to life, they can become barriers to progress. This key group must be excited and passionate about the vision that’s developed, because they can act as the catalyst to influence the department’s rank-and-file members.

Recognizing that resistance often is rooted in the fear of loss, carefully crafting the message and supporting the messenger become paramount. The idea is that if time isn’t spent contemplating the future carefully and thoughtfully, teams waste time by working toward the wrong or unfocused goals. It’s diffic ult to change direction once headed in the wrong direction. Those who are in leadership roles must invest heavily and consistently to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

Adaptability and resilience
It also should be said that an organizational vision isn’t a static concept. It must be evaluated and adjusted continually as circumstances and conditions change. Departments might need to realign their organizational vision as their customer base changes, as communities grow, and as the duties and responsibilities of firefighters evolve. A surge in calls for EMS, expanded growth in the department’s service areas and other factors might necessitate that the department reevaluates and adjusts its organizational vision. Natural disasters, mass casualty incidents and other such events also might necessitate that the department adjusts its organizational vision. Even small changes that affect the customer base or growth of the service areas might necessitate broader changes in the department’s staffing, budget, equipment and facilities, among others, that are integral parts of an organizational vision. 
The existence of adaptability and resilience ensures that the department remains effective and responsive to the evolving needs of the community.

Legacies
It’s a challenge to get an organizational vision statement correct. It must be ambitious but believable.

There are two prominent pitfalls of a marginal organizational vision statement. First, it’s too long. You want it to be memorable, not an essay. Focus on what’s relevant. Second, the statement attempts to solve all problems and doesn’t provide a direction.

An example of a good vision statement is, “A premier organization recognized for providing a safe community through professionalism, innovative actions and community involvement.” This declaration encompasses the key features that are noted above and provides an enduring message to the agency and community.

Visionary leadership is more than managing resources and responding to calls. It’s anticipating future needs, inspiring personnel, embracing innovation and engaging with the community. Leaders who have these traits can transform their department to make it more responsive and efficient and to better serve the community’s needs.

Ultimately, the effectiveness of a department under visionary leadership exerts influence on its capability to meet current and future challenges. This safeguards the community and enhances public trust.

The Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said, “A leader is best when people barely know he exists. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, we did it ourselves.”

Every season of our career must come to an end. However, from whatever position we serve, our legacies will be the memory of how we made our agencies, community and profession better.