“A vision is only as clear as the leader makes it; it’s only as passionate as the leader makes it.”
Shawn Lovejoy, Founder and C.E.O of CouragetoLead.com, points out that leaders play an important part in communicating vision.
“So many times I’ve found it begins and ends with leadership. We have not been as clear, as focused, and consistent as we need to be on communicating the vision.”
A defined vision statement can help an organization achieve success. Shawn shares from his personal experience as a lead pastor,
“We made a lot of mistakes in my leadership. I was a pastor of the church, thank God for His grace, but one thing I was proud of is our people not only knew the mission; they understood the mission. Most of them embraced the mission and they were very passionate in telling you why.
“It’s one of the things that we did well as a ministry and one of the reasons we have such exponential growth over 17 years there.”
Shawn adds that vision statements are a dime a dozen; they don’t produce results on their own.
“So many times it’s easy to forget that a vision statement, if you think about it, really has no power; it really has no life, it’s just words on a page.”
As leaders, we have a responsibility to bring that vision statement to life.
“We’ve got to take the vision statement that God has given us. Then there’s a responsibility that we have to steward that vision.”
Shawn reminds us that without a clear vision, we are more prone to wander.
“God gave a vision to the children of Israel in the Old Testament, but so many times they would not steward that vision well. They would not protect it, they would not preserve it and they would allow mission drift to happen and that’s how they ended up in the wilderness.”
He refers to Proverbs 29:18,
“Where there is no revelation people cast off restraint and we wander. We all do, so we have to hold ourselves accountable to that.”
Gain more helpful insight from Shawn’s book .
