Leaders with vision do more than align staff members with a company’s mission or rally the team around a common cause.  Visionary leaders check their ego at the door and rely on those they trust to provide intelligent and relevant insight.  Their purpose is to make everyone around them better, but they also reap what they sow.  Engaging others in an objective focused process makes them stronger, more effective, and more motivated.  And that’s the whole idea.

At its core, leadership is influence over others. Effective leadership, under which individual and team performance is developed and cultivated to its highest potential requires uncommon personal qualities.  It requires confidence and vision with a strong sense of purpose, courage, discipline, and dedication to the development of others.  It also requires authority without authoritarianism.  Superior leaders nurture cooperation instead of mandating compliance.  They build consensus and create a culture of alignment in which every member shares in the ownership and accountability.

Far too many people confuse activity with achievement.  Their objective is the glorification of process – their process – rather than a measure of true accomplishment.  By contrast, smart work resulting in meaningful accomplishment is far more impressive, where success is the product of achievement, not merely the result of working hard. Capable leaders with a well-defined vision of what success looks like recognize that substance presents itself in many forms, sometimes very subtle, and they reward achievement.