The article by Burt Nanus (1992) discusses visionary leadership and how organization leaders can re-vision for a sustainable and competitive future. The author acknowledges that every business manager needs an idea on which they can focus all their attention to implementing it and emphasizes on prudence in the process. Indeed, a vision for a successful future needs to be a continuing process that steers a company to the outside world’s emerging realities. The four concepts introduced in this article include organizational learning, re-visioning of an idea, spreading of visionary leadership, and prudent visionary.
Innovative organizations have the ability to learn and adapt to changes. Leaders facilitate organizational learning through mutual trust and openness, allowing people to embrace experimentation and variations without feeling that they are being threatened. Visions in organizations should be altered, following the signals from monitoring and tracking activities. It is essential for the leaders to develop and examine alternatives perpetually. Managers need to spread the leadership role in every level of their companies, encouraging the units to establish their vision.
Businesses such as Johnson & Johnson and 3M spread visionary leadership by creating and empowering intrapreneurs, product champions, and innovators. Practical visionary leaders acknowledge that not all dreams succeed as hoped or planned. Unexpected events may derail such visions; some may be poorly implemented even when they were appropriate during formulation, while others are shortsighted or retained too long and become outdated (Nanus, 1992). However, the failures can be avoided by using different strategies of prudent Visionary.
One need to solicit suggestions and promote participation in search for a vision to alleviate the possibility for skepticism and resistance for changes. Additionally, it is crucial to avoid being over-idealistic because other people can see the vision as impractical. Moreover, the leaders should minimize the possibility of unpleasant shocks, such as the occurrence of an unexpected failure (Nanus, 1992). They should integrate flexibility in the vision statement and capability to respond strikes with minimized trauma. Further, they may be required to break organizational inertia through the reorganization to establish new relationships’ patterns. Likewise, they should be patient and flexible in vision implementation and never be complacent. Nanus (1992) remarks that visions, as well as organizational achievements, immortalize leaders. Therefore, it is essential for the leaders to understand suppleness in goal planning and implementation increases chances for achieving success.
The article contributes to contemporary thinking about global leadership by offering the strategies which can help develop long-term sustainable goals. The modern business environment is competitive and requires innovative leaders who can quickly adapt to changes. It encourages managers to use organizational learning approach and spread the visionary leadership in their businesses to enhance their capability to adjust to a dynamic world. Moreover, this article emphasizes the importance of incorporating different viewpoints of all stakeholders to minimize the possibility for resistance in the implementation of visions.
This article portrays a vision as a roadmap which gives direction and purpose for achieving particular goals to culturally diverse communities. Notably, global organizations involve people with different values and beliefs. However, a well-developed organizational vision, flexible to accommodate all members, guides them on how to achieve common goals. Various communication tools and techniques, including newsletters, team meetings, group presentations, informal conversations among others are instrumental in sharing the visions. Additionally, global leaders can use simple storytelling and be authentic and consistent in disseminating their dream to the members of their organizations.
The information in this article is applicable in my field because it can encourage me collect and incorporate opinions of team members in developing projects’ goals and objectives. Additionally, the article’s content can help devise flexible strategies supportive in adjusting to unexpected changes. The topic for this article captures the reader’s attention and triggers the urge to know more about the visionary leadership as well as the approaches useful in re-visioning the future or organizations.
Reference
Nanus, B. (1992). Visionary leadership: How to re-vision the future. The Futurist, 26(5), 1-6.