Leadership is a process of transforming. A wonderful dream kept in a cocoon will never breath life. But a vision is meant to experience a metamorphosis – a breaking out of the idealistic to the realistic; from philosophic to pragmatic; from reflective to revolutionary.
This last part of my definition of leadership demands the skills of management. The leader tends to be more of a dreamer than a doer. The manager, on the other hand, loves to take the ideas of others, organize them, and make them happen. Leadership is effective when dreamers and doers join hands to transform an idea into action; to produce a reality that looks like the shared vision.
To create a vision often involves incredible mental exercises encompassing countless hours of reflection, revision and revelation. Once vision is created, the communication of the vision moves forward in a multitude of conversations, documents, and marketing plans. Passing on the vision to others engages multiple strategies of sharing and inspiring others to join the metamorphic process. But to transform is to roll up one's sleeves and begin to put the legos together.
I was a fan of the recent TV series called “Shark Tank.” Week after week entrepreneurs would share th
eir visions with billionaires in hopes of having them understand and share in the vision of success. It was so fascinating to me to watch each vision be communicated at various levels of effectiveness; to see the dream of the presenters either excite or fail to excite the investors; to observe the enthusiasm of the sharks as they began to share in the dream. But in the end some ideas walked away with money to help in the transformation process while other dreams were left unfulfilled. Money is not always the key to transformation, but effective leadership finds a way for the dream to become real.
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