Bill Hybels said that vision leaks. He is correct, but vision doesn’t just leak; it becomes cloudy, and that cloudiness is the enemy of progress within the organization. Vision is threatened by more than a memory lapse. Vision is most often threatened by a debilitating distortion.
It can be distorted by a person’s hidden agenda. It can be distorted by a person’s mental filter (their weltanschauung). It can be distorted by a person’s unspoken fear. A leader must do more than remind people of the vision; a leader must enforce a kind of crystal clarity, an organizing clarity, a motivating clarity.
Part of this clarity comes through the utilization of a controlling image that reinforces the vision. A leader should not only strive to bring clarity, but increasing clarity. In other words, as time passes, you should keep “tightening up” the conceptual image so that people can taste it, smell it, and touch it.
