Why lead by supervision when you can lead by a super-vision?

In his remarkable book “Winning”, Jack Welch, former Chairman and CEO of General Electric, aptly advised young and emerging leaders – “Lead by vision, not supervision”. Vision plays an instrumental role in transnational or transformational leadership traits. No matter whether you are the CEO of a global conglomerate or you are an aspiring junior clerk at a local departmental store, a visionless life is an aimless life. An ancient Japanese proverb superbly elaborated it: “Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.”

Irrespective of the discipline you are in, be it politics, sports, religion or business, great leaders have vision. Vision is so vital for the leadership skills that a leader without vision cannot be called a true or genuine leader. Leadership coach Susanne Madsen says that leaders should be visionary, which means they need to inspire and motivate their teams and lead by vision.

Theodore Martin Hesburgh, best known for being the president of University of Notre Dame, has aptly summed it up – “The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. It’s got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion.”

So, what are vision and vision statement? It is essential to have a clear idea as what the vision and vision statement are. Ironically, even the brilliant and well-groomed leaders create confusion by using the terms vision, goals, mission and strategy almost interchangeably. Bonnie Hagemann, the co-author of the book called Leading with vision, defined vision as a clear picture of a possible future state. For organisation, if offers a blue print of where an organisation should be after a defined period of time. Vision is always pragmatic and future oriented. A vision statement entails in clear words a long term plan of where and what an organisation wants to be in foreseeable future. Vinson statements usually do not change overnight. There is always some rare room of modification in the backdrop of economical volatility or technological innovations.

If you are a leader and you lead with vision, it reflects that you are capable of inspiring the confidence of and motivating your team to achieve your long term vision.

What is supervision and why not you lead by supervision? Having discussed vision, it makes sense to discuss supervision and why you need not lead by supervision. Supervision refers to the act of guiding or overseeing the functions of others. More specifically, supervision is a process with the objective of supporting, assuring and augmenting the skills and knowledge of the person(s) being supervised. Difference between vision and supervision is what the difference between leader and manager. A leader knows what to do, while a manager knows how to do.  Thought leadership engages in idea generation, while managerial function revolves around idea implementation.

Managerial functions mostly resemble supervisory functions. They are responsible for the day-to-day operations of a process or project. They have people who report to them, they supervise their performance and help them achieve their targets. On the contrary, leadership creates a sense of passion or hunger for a predefined objective to be achieved in a predefined future state. It is all about building a vision for the people to follow. Make no mistake. Leadership and supervision are not entirely independent. Agreed that a charismatic leader cannot be expected to teach his entire work-force how to do things, but he will surely teach some key members of his team, and they will, in turn, educate others under them how to do what to do. It can safely be argued that leadership supplements supervision, but the vice versa does not always hold.

Why leaders must have visions: One of the necessary qualities of a good leader is having a vision, which complies the SMART criteria i.e. it should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound. Visionary leaders are not born with inherent visions, rather they honed vision building skill through practices and persistency.

To be a visionary leader, a leader must have something more than mere a vision. The daunting challenge is to communicate and inculcate that vision with clarity and passion to encourage others to transform that vision into a reality. The key to success for the effective leaders to successfully implement their visions is to make their visions shared visions.

How the leadership vision can be communicate ad executed: One of the core competencies of visionary leadership is to communicate and execute its vision. To flawlessly execute your leadership vision, you need to define your vision, develop killing strategies and devise tactical plans for your organisation to transform your vision into reality. The long term strategies that are instrumental for the successful execution of leadership vision may be summed up as below.

Define, refine and communicate vision: Imagine leading a team with no vision. There would be discipline, hard work and achieving day-to-day marginal targets. But no long term result worth a mention would be achieved. For long term results require long term thinking, which in turn requires leadership vision. A leadership vision, if communicated vehemently across the board in an organisation, becomes a shared vision. Every team member treats it as his own vision and relentlessly works to realise it.

Leadership vision should be above brilliant, enterprising and motivating.

A dull, lifeless and unimaginative leadership vision may prove counterproductive for the long term growth of an organisation. A vision statement clearly articulates where an organisation is and where it wants to move in a predetermined future state. A vision has to make sense to be achievable. Elon Musk’s visions of driverless cars and enabling human life on Mars through SpaceX may seem laughable at the beginning. Now it is just a matter of a few years to turn these unthinkable myths into realities. A long term organisational vision does not mean to be static rather it is dynamic with the changes in socio-cultural and economic factors.

Also read: Can you be a good leader without being a good follower first?

Long term thinking: It is not the long term planning, but long term thinking that matters. Johnson & Johnson (J&J) was named as the World’s Most Admired Company in 2019 by Fortune. J&J found itself among the top slots of this prestigious list for 17 years in a row. What makes J&J the best among the rest? It is simply called innovative management and long term thinking, which can precisely be termed as strategic thinking. Strategic thinking is a managerial skill which could be sharpened by consistently visualizing desired state of future. Leadership vision should be like a blue print for creating the future. As Walt Disney has aptly put it “If you can dream it, you can do it.”

Plans and Priorities: Even the most brilliant and vivid leadership visions will fail if not supported by doable plans and priorities. It would be an excellent managerial strategy to break the leadership vision into small parts of tasks and those tasks be assigned to individuals and departments as the targets. It is essential to use hierarchical management to delegate authority. An organization’s team needs clearly defined plans to execute leadership vision.

As a visionary leader, give your employees only vision and let them find the ways to achieve your vision. Make your vision a tool for the confidence building, inspiring and encouraging your team, not for supervising. Great leaders do not lead by supervision, they lead by super-vision.