Do You Have a Vision?

What? An important aspect of being a good leader is to have a vision. Everyday leaders and even leaders who are widely known, all have visions. In The Art of Leadership, three main points are emphasized as to why visions are so important to a successful leader. These main points are: vision is necessary for effective leadership, a leader can develop a vision for any project, work group, or organization, and many leaders fail because they do not have a vision. One leader who has greatly influenced my view of how visions make leadership successful is Ellen Degeneres. Her vision is to influence people to accept and embrace themselves for who they are. She spreads the word of her vision through her t.v. show, The Ellen Degeneres Show.

So What? Without visions, confusion occurs. Followers do not have a clear picture as to what part they are supposed to playing. Instead they only focus on functioning on a day to day basis and in doing so, hurt the vision of their leader. In order to ensure that the vision you want to pass on to other people is seen, there are eight essential steps that should be taken. For example, Ellen "walks the walk and talks the talk". She provides herself as an example as to how she wants others to act. She shows her followers that its okay to accept themselves for who they are and be proud of it. Ellen also seeks the involvement of her followers in her quest to achieve her vision. She encourages people to speak their minds and have an open mind to other people who may be different from them.

Now What? By successfully following the steps to convey her vision to her followers, Ellen has successfully influenced many people today. She has raised awareness about many important issues and has provided alternative view in which she encourages people to open up and accept who they are and who other people around them are. Through her process of sharing her vision, she has followed the primary visioning process principles that are outlined in The Art of Leadership. As one of Ellen Degeneres' followers, I have been influenced by her vision and the techniques she uses to successfully make people aware of that particular vision. Since I have seen a real life example, that I can relate to, of how a leader successfully conveys a vision to their followers, I can take what I have learned and apply it to my everyday leadership in school, the workplace, and in sports. In doing so I can extend my visions to other people more effectively

Leaderless Jobs

What? Many managers or bosses consider themselves leaders but sometimes they are the farthest thing from it. Many issues arise from managers and bosses who do not have leadership traits. From trust issues between fellow employees to lack of motivation of employees to do their jobs are some of the major problems that are ever present in a day to day job. I personally experienced this at one of the jobs I used to work at.

So What? In the work place leaders are crucial to to making a business operate smoothly. As I stated above, I learned first hand the disasters of not having a leader in a work environment.Without leadership, a work place can become complete chaos. It can create a negative work environment that makes their employees often feel alienated and low levels of job satisfication as stated by Julian Barling. Being a manager and being a leader are two completely different things according to Dianne Walker's article Effective Leadership in the Workplace. Leadership traits are the foundation of providing
a productive and good work environment within a buisness.

Now What?  Through a variety of ways, people have come to realize that working in an environment with a manager instead of a leader is detrimental to the business, themselves, customers, and fellow employees. Instead if their is a leader, employees are actually more likely to support the leaders decisions, follow their directions, and be more productive. Not only that they are also able to provide a better work environment not only for the employees but also the customers and other people they interact with daily. Needless to say I no longer work at the company that failed to provide a leader. I've come to find that working at a job with a good leader makes all the difference in the world and aspire to potentially become a effective workplace leader!