Dear leader… what do you actually want?

Dear leader… what do you actually want? In recent years, I have heard countless managers talk about their vision, goals, and priorities. Rarely, however, did I feel they were consumed by passion and drive. Usually, that resulted from their personal belief – or lack of that – in their organisational strategy. 

How people talk about their organisations and the words they use reveal a lot about how they are personally connected to them. How often do managers use the word ‘I’ in communicating? More specifically, combined with ‘want’, ‘am convinced’, or ‘will personally ensure that’? Strategy communication often reflects the cold analysis and justification used in the context of strategy-making rather than personal beliefs and ambitions. Weirdly enough, the famous McKinsey slides full of numbers work perfectly fine to convince executives, board members, and investors. Your employees, however, need something else. They are looking for leaders who believe in something. Leaders with a clear and concrete vision of the future, and a clear idea on how to realise it.

Strategy is not synonymous with vision

Many top managers I encounter are so caught up in the daily “firefighting” and worry so much about short-term results, that they barely have time to think about their personal ambition for their organisation. What does ultimate success look like for it? What, in their belief, is the best route to success? I do not think any of them need to attend an ‘authentic leadership’ course. It is, however, very valuable to occasionally speak with your team about everyone’s personal motivations, beliefs, and ambitions for the organisation. It helps to develop your strategy as well as a vision for the future that employees can get excited about.

A vision cannot be outsourced

When Fortis acquired a part of ABN Amro many years ago, there was a strong need for a vision of the merged bank’s future. A ‘compelling strategy story’, a promising perspective that people could hold onto during the long and painful integration process.  Both banks’ top management discussed this extensively in various project groups, that drafted storyline after storyline. Yet it remained a vision on paper – lifeless. Nothing in it caught employees’ attention or interest. Nobody became enthusiastic about it.

Why? Because the entire exercise had been a purely technical one, carried out by people who had no idea if they would ever actually lead the new enterprise. The vision wasn’t backed up by true beliefs or personal ambition. And if anyone actually did have these, the trenches of the integration process had not created a favourable environment to express them.

The integration ultimately failed: Fortis collapsed, and the Dutch state took over ABN AMRO. But this story holds a few interesting lessons. Lesson 1: Employees are not mobilized by a vision on paper but by leaders with a real story. Lesson 2: Developing that story requires that the management team invests in an open conversation about personal motivations and beliefs. Lesson 3: Outsourcing the story development process to a working group or staff department does not work. Only you, as a leader, can answer the question: what do you actually want for your organisation?

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Dear leader… 
Under this title, we are reissuing a series of 10 classic blogs on leadership communication and change. Michiel van Delden wrote them over the last few years, translating key lessons from these two disciplines to the world of managers.