What does it take to lead a company toward long-term success? How can you create and implement a vision that transforms your organization?
The Vision Driven Leader by Michael Hyatt presents a practical framework for developing strategic leadership skills. Drawing from his experience as a CEO and leadership coach, Hyatt reveals how to craft a compelling vision, inspire others to embrace it, and turn that vision into reality.
Read more to discover how you can become the kind of leader who drives meaningful change and sustainable growth for your organization.
Overview of The Vision Driven Leader
Many business leaders face a common problem: the tendency to get caught up in day-to-day operations and short-term goals at the expense of long-term strategy and purpose. In The Vision Driven Leader, Michael Hyatt offers a guide for business leaders who want to avoid this pitfall, transform their leadership approach, and drive their organizations toward greater success. A CEO and best-selling author, Hyatt explains that effective leadership begins with a clear, compelling vision for the future. Without a well-defined vision, leaders and their teams often struggle with direction, motivation, and achieving meaningful results.
(Shortform note: The importance of vision is well-established in leadership theory, appearing in scholarly works such as J.M. Burns’s Leadership, Robert J. House’s “A 1976 Theory of Charismatic Leadership,” and Bernard M. Bass’s Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations. It was developed from James V. Downton’s concept of “transformational leadership,” which refers to leadership that challenges the status quo in order to improve their organizations and results.)
Hyatt contends that, by developing and communicating a strong vision, leaders can inspire their teams, make better decisions, and navigate challenges more effectively. Drawing from his experience as a CEO and leadership coach, Hyatt wrote The Vision Driven Leader to provide a practical framework for leaders at all levels who want to cultivate a more strategic and impactful approach to their roles. Published in 2020, the book is aimed at current and aspiring business leaders, entrepreneurs, and anyone responsible for guiding a team or organization toward a shared goal. His advice is particularly relevant for leaders who feel their organizations are stagnating or failing to reach their full potential.
In our overview, we’ll first explain what a vision-driven leader is and the benefits of having a strong vision. Then we’ll provide a three-step process for establishing your vision, including 1) crafting a vision, 2) getting others on board with your vision, and finally, 3) implementing your vision.
What Is a Vision-Driven Leader?
According to Hyatt, a vision-driven leader is someone whose leadership style is based on a vision: a sensible yet motivational picture of an organization’s future, usually three to five years ahead.
A vision provides a clear-cut and understandable goal for your entire company to rally around. It should be a stark improvement from your current state, and it should be achievable yet ambitious.
Mission Versus Vision
A successful company must have both a mission and a vision—many people think that these are the same thing, but Hyatt explains their key difference:
- Your mission is about where you are now: your company’s current purpose, customer base, and the value you provide to your customers.
- Your vision is about what you want to do next: It’s your idea of where you’re going and what you’ll do once you get there.
Managers Versus Leaders
Hyatt also draws a distinction between managers and leaders. While both managers and leaders are essential to an organization, they play fundamentally different roles. Managers focus on executing existing plans and maintaining stability within the organization. In contrast, leaders create and communicate an inspiring vision for the future, galvanizing their teams to achieve extraordinary goals.
According to Hyatt, many people who think of themselves as leaders are actually managers because they haven’t taken the time to craft a vision (which they must do if they want to become a leader). There are three main reasons for this:
- They don’t understand what vision is.
- They don’t feel prepared to make a vision, so they focus on the elements of business that they’re more comfortable with.
- They want to focus on more immediate affairs, putting their current plans into action and running things in the present. They don’t want to “waste time” by creating a vision.
As a result, many companies stay stagnant because they don’t have a leader coming up with a vision that pushes change. This eventually leads to the company’s failure.
The Benefits of a Strong Vision
It takes some work and discomfort to become a vision-driven leader—so why should leaders do so? According to Hyatt, setting a vision for your organization is important because a vision motivates people to work hard, even in the face of obstacles, and it improves your strategic decisions.
Benefit 1: A Vision Is Motivational
Hyatt explains that your vision can inspire you and your team to work hard as you try to fulfill it. regardless of the obstacles in your way. It does this in a number of ways:
- Most people want to face challenges that require creativity and novel thinking—your vision provides a direction for that creativity, sparks imagination, and challenges their skills.
- It connects individuals’ tasks to the larger goals of the company, so their work feels meaningful and they’re more willing to do their best.
- Without a vision, neither employees nor managers and executives know what to focus on. A lack of focus makes them more likely to waste time and effort, feel as if their work doesn’t matter, and quit out of frustration.
Benefit 2: A Vision Leads to Improved Strategic Decisions
Another benefit of a vision is that it improves your strategic decisions, explains Hyatt. It does so in two ways: First, it helps you identify opportunities for growth and development by keeping you focused on the future. If you’re always looking for ways to better fulfill your vision, you’re more likely to recognize these opportunities. This contrasts with people who focus so much on what’s working for the company now that they fail to innovate, and they become obsolete.
Second, once you’ve recognized an opportunity for innovation, you can ask yourself whether pursuing it would help you achieve your vision. If not, you can turn down that opportunity and avoid wasting resources on distractions to your vision, even if they’re lucrative.
For example, imagine your company manufactures medical equipment for hospitals. You develop a vision for your company: Become a leading manufacturer for not only hospitals, but also doctors’ offices, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, and home use. One branch of your company makes a slight profit by providing delivery services for the equipment as well. However, this doesn’t serve your vision for the company but instead distracts from it—expanding this practice requires more employee training and time spent coordinating delivery times with customers. Instead of investing more resources into this distraction, you partner with a third-party delivery service so you can focus your company’s efforts on achieving your vision.
Step #1: Craft Your Vision
According to Hyatt, there are three steps to establishing and implementing your vision: 1) craft your vision, 2) get others on board with your vision, and 3) execute your vision.
The first step to putting your vision into practice is to craft it. Hyatt explains that a good vision must be motivational and compelling. We’ll explore each of these characteristics, then we’ll offer a few tips on getting into the vision-crafting mindset.
A Motivational Vision
According to Hyatt, the most foundational feature of a motivational vision is that it’s something you genuinely want to achieve. You have to desire the future that your vision describes in order for it to motivate you. The more motivated you are and the more conviction you have that this is where you want to go, the more likely you’ll be to motivate and convince other people as well.
Pinpoint your desired vision by asking yourself what you want your future to look like, specifically focusing on four areas: the team, the product, the marketing, and the outcome.
Team
The people on your team are the ones who can make your vision a reality, so consider what kind of team you want to have in the future. Consider things like personality and the expertise of team members, as well as how the company will meet their needs.
For example, if your company makes video games, you may decide you want team members who are creative and determined and who seek out learning opportunities. You could commit to supporting them by allowing unstructured creative time and frequent chances to offer feedback at every level of the organization.
Products
Ask yourself: What kind of products do you want to offer? What products will help you achieve your vision? This isn’t something specific like, “We design video games,” but rather it’s about the value you want to offer to customers. For example, “We offer consumers a unique type of recreation and entertainment.” You can then expand with details like, “We offer consumers a way to connect with others like them and immerse themselves in powerful storytelling.”
Marketing
Hyatt specifies that this is more philosophical than technical. What kind of relationship do you want with your customers in the future? What kind of customer relationship will help you fulfill your vision? For example, “We create profound experiences in our advertising that captivate our consumers. We nurture customer relationships through personalized and meaningful interactions.”
Outcome
What results do you want to achieve by fulfilling your vision? For example, “We’re reshaping the way consumers engage with storytelling and how the market responds to their needs.”
A Compelling Vision
Hyatt explains that your vision must also be compelling. Your goal is to encourage people to work for a better future—but if people aren’t inspired or excited by your vision, they won’t care enough to put in the necessary work. You have to galvanize people to make your vision a reality.
Hyatt says that a compelling vision is extreme and challenging, but not reckless.
Extreme
Your vision needs to be a completely new, ambitious idea because gradually improving an existing idea step-by-step isn’t exciting.
Challenging, But Not Reckless
If you make reckless decisions, your company will likely fail. When refining your vision, make sure it’s not likely to fail, alienate your team or stakeholders, or harm your mission.
Get in the Right Mindset for Crafting Your Vision
Hyatt offers some advice on how to get started on developing your vision.
- Disconnect from your daily work and work environment. This gives you the mental space needed to see the present more clearly and to sit and imagine the future—reorienting from the short term to the long term. Hyatt recommends going somewhere you won’t be interrupted and not allowing yourself to think about other work until you’ve finished.
- Recognize your expectations, and don’t let them stop you from imagining a better future. Negative previous experiences may make you expect that the future can’t be better—demotivating and trapping you in your present circumstances. Instead, try seeing them as motivating: The only way to go is up.
- Don’t worry about how you’re going to achieve your vision yet. Let your imagination go wild: What would your future look like if everything went perfectly? Once you have your vision, you can worry about how you’ll fulfill it, but if you don’t have a goal, you won’t be able to plan the steps to reach it.
Step #2: Get Others on Board With Your Vision
Now that you understand how to craft and develop your vision, we’ll explain step two of the process: convincing others to join you in pursuing your vision.
Hyatt explains that you need other people on board in order to make your vision a reality. That’s why it’s essential that you convince your team, your superiors, your peers, and the rest of the company to invest in your vision. We’ll explain how to effectively communicate your vision, how to sell your vision, and how to address reluctance and opposition to your vision.
An Effectively Communicated Vision
According to Hyatt, you must communicate your vision effectively to ensure understanding, calm uncertainties, and boost confidence. Good communication lets people know exactly what they’re moving toward so they can identify actions that advance that goal and can take those actions with confidence. Your team should also see your enthusiasm for the vision, which can encourage their own enthusiasm. When you don’t communicate your vision effectively, people don’t know what the company is moving toward or what they should prioritize. This leads to stress, wasted energy and time, and discouragement.
To communicate your vision effectively, use clear, simple, and exact language to describe what you want to see. Avoid buzzwords and business jargon like “synergy,” “cutting-edge,” or “amplify,” as these can make your idea seem less substantive. Don’t assume any part of your vision goes without saying. Your team won’t know anything about your vision that you don’t clearly convey to them—and a team can’t work toward a vision they don’t fully understand.
A Sellable Vision
Hyatt explains that your vision must be sellable. In other words, you need to be able to convince other people to embrace it and invest their time, money, and effort into achieving it. The process of convincing others can help you improve your vision by getting feedback—which in turn can make people more likely to invest, as they’re more likely to contribute to building something they helped devise.
Hyatt defines four groups you must sell your vision to: your team, your superiors, your peers, and your company.
Your Team
Hyatt recommends pitching your vision to your team first because they’re the ones who will work with you to realize it. Address their concerns about change so they understand why you’re proposing it and how it’ll benefit them. Don’t rush the feedback process, as it’s key to helping you refine your vision.
Your Superiors
Hyatt explains how to convince your superiors—or, if you’re CEO, your board of directors or investors: Don’t surprise your superiors with your pitch, as they’ll be more likely to reject it if they’re caught off-guard. Instead, schedule a time to discuss it with them.
Additionally, commit to getting your superiors to embrace your vision. Don’t make your pitch until you’re sure it’s a truly good idea and you’ve prepared to answer any issues they may bring up. Present it in a logical, clear way.
Your Peers
According to Hyatt, you also need to sell your peers in leadership and supervisory positions on your vision. This not only gives you more feedback opportunities, but can also smooth the process of implementing your vision. By discussing their feedback early on, you can address any of their concerns in a more private setting—rather than having them publicly disagree with you and potentially damage the company’s overall investment. Even if they still disagree with you following your private discussion, your willingness to hear them out will make them less likely to publicly complain.
Your Company
According to Hyatt, you must also convince the entire company to invest in your vision. To do this, explain your vision thoroughly and frequently. Repetition is key—Hyatt says you can’t communicate your vision too much. People will misunderstand or forget your vision much faster than you expect, but constant repetition keeps your vision at the forefront of their attention and keeps them focused on achieving it.
Addressing Reluctance Toward Your Vision
Even after you’ve appealed to all four of these groups, Hyatt says, you’ll likely still find that you have some people who are reluctant to invest in your vision, or are even opposed to it. He says you can prepare for these challenges in advance by cultivating three traits:
- Perseverance: You must be able to continue in the face of continual rejection. Focus on why your vision is so important, and the effect it’ll have when you eventually succeed.
- Authenticity: Hold true to your values. Since your values inform your vision, this is the only way to actually fulfill your vision, and it’s key to maintaining the trust of others.
- Dedication: You must be totally dedicated to the whole vision. Don’t let people lower your standards or undermine the vision. Instead, defend it and encourage other people to maintain it. Remember the greatness of the vision and why it’s important, and then talk about it to others, refusing to settle for less.
Step #3: Execute Your Vision
Now that you’ve crafted your vision and convinced your organization to invest in it, the next step is to develop a strategy to execute it. You can use a cascading strategic plan to ensure you’re making regular progress toward achieving your vision. Hyatt recommends defining your strategy at different intervals to track this progress. He breaks down the process of setting this strategy like this:
Start with the high-level, long-term vision that you want to achieve. Then, define goals for incrementally smaller time frames: seven to 10 annual goals, two to three of which become quarterly goals, followed by three weekly goals based on your quarterly progress, and then three daily tasks that get you closer to the weekly goals.
If you don’t follow this trail all the way down, with everything connecting back to the vision, you can become distracted by the day-to-day business operations. Keeping the lights on is important but doesn’t help you reach your goals. Hyatt explains that you have to push past it to keep making progress. If you do follow the trail all the way down, though, you’ll not only work steadily toward your goals, but you’ll also be continually, concretely showing your employees how important your vision is, reinforcing its clarity.
Be Ready to Pivot
Even after you’ve crafted your vision, convinced others to invest in it, and begun implementing it, you must be ready to pivot in response to changes. Hyatt explains that, normally, all companies follow a similar progression of phases:
- The growth phase, when the company is young, still finding its footing in the market, and experiencing rapid growth. This phase is usually marked by a high level of innovation.
- The steady-state phase, when the company has secured its place in the market and is at the height of its profitability and success. This phase is usually marked by a decrease in innovation and increase in comfort (which can turn into a lack of progress).
- The decline phase, when the company is losing profits and is either at risk of closing or is actually doing so. This phase is marked by new, innovative companies taking over the industry and making the declining ones obsolete.
Hyatt says you don’t have to resign yourself to following this pattern. Leaders can save their companies from decline by pivoting (what Hyatt refers to as a “zag”). Pivoting involves recognizing that their current vision isn’t driving the company to greatness—and either adjusting it or creating a new vision entirely.
Any company can do this at any point, regardless of their phase.
Responding to Change in the Growth Phase
Typically, leaders of companies in the growth phase pivot after realizing their business plans aren’t working in practice. They have to redirect their energy according to the market data they’ve gathered, usually by developing a new business plan or by narrowing it so the company’s resources aren’t spread thin over many projects.
For example, a company may enter the market planning to produce school and work supplies, including computers, tablets, grading software, pencils, and paper. Their vision is to become a leader in the supplies market. After some initial market research, however, they discover that their broad business plan can’t compete with existing companies. Instead, they narrow down their plan to focus exclusively on grading software, where the vision of becoming a leading supplier is achievable.
Responding to Change in the Steady-State and Decline Phases
Leaders of companies in the steady-state and decline phases typically need to rediscover their innovative energy. Instead of being content with their current success, they need to look to the future and seek new opportunities to change the market. For companies that have already shut down, this may look like the leader picking one aspect of the company that did work well and building a new company based on that aspect.
For example, a leader of a social media company may notice that competitors are overtaking their market share and that their business plan is no longer sustainable. Rather than give up, they could introduce a new feature to their website that focuses more on multimedia and allows users to engage with content creators in a brand new way.
