September 2009
Leadership Development Ideas - A leader’s Most Potent Weapon: The Power of Vision
(Reflections from "Courageous Leadership" by Bill Hybels)
Bill Hybels (Senior Pastor of Willow Creek church in the Chicago area), in his book "Courageous Leadership", says that the most potent weapon for world change is the word Vision. According to Hybels Vision is at the very core of leadership. If you take vision away from a leader, you might as well cut out his (or her) heart. Vision is the fuel that leaders run on, the energy that creates action, and is the fire that creates the passion of followers. Ultimately, according to Hybels, vision is the clear call that sustains focused effort year after year, decade after decade, as people offer consistent and sacrificial service to God. Powerful words. Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained.” Without vision, people lose the vitality that makes them feel alive.
People need to know the main thing
Whatever one’s personal or organizational vision might be, Peter Drucker says that it should be able to fit on the front of a T-shirt. It needs to be crisp, repeatable, succinct, and memorable. In other words, people need to understand it so they are clear about where they are going if they decide to follow! People get discouraged when they aren’t sure why they are there, where they are going, or what part they are to play in the organization or program.
The Impact of Vision on your Men’s Ministry
Vision increases energy and moves men into action
Life has a way of sucking the zest out of men. Careers, wives, kids, responsibilities, and financial pressures combine to overload them both physically and emotionally. Life becomes a grind, and the last thing a man wants to do is add serving at a men’s ministry to his to-do list. But an energizing, God-honoring vision can change all that. It can give a bored man a sense of significance and meaning.
Vision increases ownership
Effective vision-casting will give men the sense that, “This is my ministry… This is my church.”
Vision provides focus
A clear articulation of what a particular men’s ministry IS about also offers, by implication, a clear statement of what it ISN’T about. In other words, every vision that is cast embraces certain essential activities (to keep the focus), but it also excludes scores of other energy-diverting events and activities. We can’t be all things to all men.
Vision smoothes leadership succession
One of the hardest things in a men’s ministry is to ‘pass the baton’ off to another, because it is often hard to find a successor. Not having a vision makes it doubly hard. A clear, communicated vision will cause those who have a passion for the same vision to stand up and be counted. Those guys may just be the successor to the throne.
One can see how vision, with its ability to increase energy, ownership, focus, and leadership succession can be a men’s ministry leader or council’s best friend. Join us next month when we discuss, “Getting-it-done leadership: Turnng vision into action.”
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