Vision as a leadership essential (II)

Last time we began looking at leadership accessories and leadership essentials. Accessories are not essential in themselves but they accentuate what they are added to. Accessories are things which can be added to something else in order to make it more useful, versatile, or attractive. They are items, equipments and things that are not usually essential, but which can be used with or added to something else in order to make it more effective, useful or attractive. Accessories are extras, embellishments, add-ons, additions, appendages.

Essentials, on the other hand, are absolutely necessary. They are crucial, indispensable, fundamental.

We began focussing on vision as a leadership essential. When a leader wants to lead without vision he will be like a blind man leading blind people. Blind leadership is disruptive and dangerous and must be avoided by all means.

“Forget them. They are blind men leading blind men. When a blind man leads a blind man, they both end up in the ditch.» Matthew 15.14

There is nothing as bad leadership because the failure of leadership not only affects the leader but the people who follow and look up to the leader.

“Poor leadership results in a negative impact on the culture within an organisation in a number of ways:

1. Lack of Vision

Without a direction, employees are at a loss. They don’t know what the goals are of the company and they don’t know why they are working with specific processes. They will accomplish only mechanically, not with any intelligent direction, towards a common goal.

2. Lack of Synergy

Poor company/departmental leadership inhibits the development of synergy and may result in fragmented departments and work roles. This means that each employee neglects the importance his work plays in achieving organisational objectives.

A good Leader will communicate with employees regularly to convey a range of information and develop synergy. Encouraging employees to share ideas and engage in open discussions benefits the company and ensures that everyone is aligned in pursuing the same goals.

3. Creating a culture of mediocrity

Poor leadership at the top can slow down any improvement in the abilities of Managers within the Business as a whole. Middle Managers start to emulate their Senior Leaders’ styles of managing people and business decisions. This goes on and flows down the chain of command, eventually becoming a culture in the organisation and resulting in low morale.

“Most people think of leadership as a position and therefore don’t see themselves as leaders”. Stephen Covey

4. Low Morale

Poor leadership can result from employees feeling misdirected or uncertain about the company and their jobs. Poor communication contributes to this issue. In some cases, failure to address negative employees or poor performers leads to low morale, because good employees often have to pick up the slack.

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