Week  5:  Vision - Lecture

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” ~ Carl Jung
Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper because he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.”
Oprah Winfrey, at the age of 22, was fired from her job as a television reporter because she was ‘unfit for TV.”
Steven Speilberg was rejected from film school, not once…not twice…but three times.
Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.
Thomas Edison failed some 10,000 times before successfully inventing the light bulb.
What led these successful and talented people to continue despite failure and rejection?
Vision –
Vision is a mental picture of the future. It is an idea of what the future can hold, but has not yet happened.
Vision is the thing inside of us that guides us. It creates a desire to grow and improve. Vision embodies our hopes and ideals. It gives us a sense of purpose. Visions brings us flashes or glimpses of what is possible.
Vision is when architects dream of new buildings and designs. Or when business people dream of growing their business.
So why is Vision important in Leadership?
1) Vision shows us where we are headed.
As a leader you have to look forward and see where you and the company are headed. This is important in order to avert catastrophe before it happens, or to plan for increases in staffing, production, etc. Vision helps a leader prepare for the future. Vision keeps a leader on course during rocky times or unexpected set backs.
2) Vision provides motivation and inspires us to keep on going.
Leaders need to keep the end result in mind. A leader’s vision needs to be strong enough to carry them through to the end. Otherwise they will stop short of their goals.
3) Vision helps to keep us moving forward and move through obstacles.
If a leader has a strong vision, little set backs and obstacles will seem small and / or insignificant. They will work through them and persevere to the end, learning as they go. Vision helps leaders to persevere.
4) Vision provides focus.
With all of life’s distractions, and people vying for our attention nowadays, it can be hard to feel a sense of accomplishment. As a leader, acting on your vision will provide you with the focus needed to accomplish your goals. Vision helps leaders work on what is important to achieve the end results and not get caught up in the mundane stuff. It helps leaders to focus on the 20% that is important instead of the remaining 80% that can be delegated and handled by others.
5) Vision gives us meaning and purpose to what we do.
As a leader, it will help you to see the end result of your efforts. It will give you your “why?” and the reason that you are doing what you do.
“A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.” ~ Ralph Lauren
 
It’s hard to buy-in to what a leader is asking of you if you don’t believe that they know where they’re going, and they have a viable plan to get there.  That buy-in is the commitment we’re after.  And communicating in “such a way” doesn’t necessarily require charisma; it requires passion and a belief in oneself (i.e., positive self-regard). 
 
Denver-based CH2M Hill characterizes a vision as follows:

• Attracts commitment and energizes people
• Creates meaning for followers
• Establishes a standard of excellence
• Bridges the present and the future.

 
John Mackey (Whole Foods) wrote that great leaders have four principles:

1.  Bedrock principles
2. A moral compass
3. VISION 
4. Ability to form a consensus

 
“What you do thunders so loudly in my ears, I cannot hear what you say.”
 
Great leaders give real thought to the values, ideas and activities they're most passionate about--and those are the things they pursue, rather than money or prestige or options forced on them by someone else. The visions these leaders have can be--and, in fact, should be--challenging to put into action. They realize them only by setting realistic, demanding goals and then going after them relentlessly, with the help of other talented men and women who are equally committed and engaged.
When it comes to living out a vision, persistence matters just as much as inspiration.
Wendy Kopp, a reluctant entrepreneur, offers a powerful case study in how to develop a compelling vision and fulfill it through great persistence. While many of her college classmates were embarking on lucrative careers in law, medicine or finance, she followed her passion and instincts along a different path. She wanted to make a difference in struggling schools, and she wanted to get her generation more involved with education and poverty. Kopp's novel solution: a national teaching corps. When she dreamed up Teach for America, in the late 1980s, as a senior project at Princeton University, her odds for success looked slim. Indeed, she recalls how even her own academic adviser called the idea "quite evidently deranged." Why would the nation's top college graduates give up a couple years of their lives to teach in the nation's worst schools, when they could be traveling or climbing the career ladder in big, exciting cities?
Kopp recognized the challenges. But she had formed a lasting vision and wouldn't let go so easily. She raised $2.5 million in start-up funds, assembled a staff and launched a grass-roots campaign to recruit teachers. Her journey since then has not always been smooth. Still, she's kept her eyes on her ultimate goal: creating a better future for Americans through better education. The record shows she's getting results. Kopp's remarkable career started with a clear, invigorating vision. What's yours?
 
注：本栏目重在收集一些海外留学文书的题目，以便加加留学编辑深入了解海外教育方式与发展形势，从而拓展个人陈述、推荐信等文书的写作思路。