How to be a Vision Driven Leader. (Ep. 149)

Whether you own a business, pastor a church, or are an entrepreneur, one thing is certain, we need a laser-like focused vision to succeed. As leaders, we should be to leading first with vision by creating a compelling future for our customers and/or teams.

Vision-driven leaders focus first on what they see. Your vision should begin inside, deep within the recesses of your heart. Then, when you know where you believe you’re headed, it’s important to bring your team to the table and communicate what God’s placed on your heart. The goal, to communicate that vision and make it tangible.

In this podcast episode, I talk about Michael Hyatt’s new book, The Vision Driven Leader. Here’s the review I wrote on Amazon:

Michael Hyatt has crafted an easy to follow system to declutter the mind, distill down to the heart of a leader’s vision, and a simple to follow process for writing it down and how to leverage your team’s ideas and thoughts so you can place your church or business in a place to win.

One of my favorite quotes in the book comes near the end – “Waiting feels safe, but waiting kills vision. Where will you take your team…?” In other words, don’t wait until you have crafted the perfect vision, start somewhere, start today, and leverage your future with a good plan today.

General George Paton said, “A good plan executed today is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”

I highly recommend this book to any pastor, church leader, business coach, leader, or CEO who is looking for a way to cultivate change today, so they can win tomorrow.

I want to give you three ways this book will help you to craft a compelling vision and distill it down into something that will inspire. Why do we need a vision? What happens if we take the time to look inside? What will we see?

1. Vision Drives Everything

First, vision is inspiring. It’s the driving force behind the why of any business or dream. It’s about being a part of something bigger than yourself. Sure, there are times when vision seems daunting and out of reach. But lifting your perspective to a higher elevation, vision gives you a three to five year view of where you desire to be.

Second; the question you have to ask yourself: what is the change I want to make in this world? How will your vision of a better tomorrow inspire others to get beyond themselves and change the world? People want to be part of something bigger than themselves.

How will the lives of others be changed by your vision? If you can discover that answer you’ll find people will jump on board and do what it takes.

2 questions every leader must answer in discovering their vision.



* Chapter 1 – Are you a leader or a manager?

* Chapter 2 – What difference does vision make?



2. Drafting your Vision Script.

It’s easy to be short-sighted in crafting a vision. A lot of leaders look at vision as, “I would like to be…” or “I hope we’ll be…” By having this mindset, leaders set themselves up for failure.

Instead of thinking the above, maybe we should write our vision out as if we’re living it right now. At Life Church, a few years ago we recrafted our vision and it has become the driving focus for our church. Here’s an example of our vision.

“We see a church where people love God first in every area of their life through worship, the Word, and fellowship with other believers.

We serve people in their areas of influence by showing the love of Jesus through their actions and using their spiritual gifts to minister to those who attend services and Life Groups.

We have a church filled with individuals who take their love of God and take that love into the world for people to discover th...