As a leader, you’ve gathered the team and faced reality as it is. Nothing was sugar coated, there was brutal honesty. You were able to address the current status of things.
You can’t leave people there. It’s fine to know where you are on the map, but now you must answer a very important question.
Where do you want to go?
As the leader, you must paint a picture of the future.
Your team will want to know, where are we going? What will it look like when we get there? When we arrive, how do we know we will have achieved success?
Defining where you are is addressing the problem.
Painting a mental picture of what the future looks like gives hope, direction and purpose.
That gives you and your team a reason to show up everyday, and not just show up begrudgingly but with passion and excitement.
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy visited NASA’s space center. He had recently announced that the United States would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. He stirred the imaginations of the American people of discoveries that could help us in everyday life. He couched the mission to the moon as a race against the rest of the world and he wanted America to be there first. Also, he wanted America known for doing hard things. Putting a man on the moon and returning him safely would take great ingenuity and problem solving.
Kennedy had done so well at painting a picture of that future, that upon visiting NASA’s space center, he learned that vision and passion lived deep within the organization.
While touring the space center, the President saw a man with a broom.
The President asked the man, who was a staff janitor, “Sir, what do you do here?”
The janitor replied, with broom in hand, “Sir, I’m helping put a man on the moon.”
On July 21st, 1969, three American astronauts landed on the moon, with Neil Armstrong becoming the first person to ever walk on it.
JFK faced reality as it was, and then painted a picture of where he wanted America to go. He fought to equip NASA with the funding and people it needed and America won the space race.
That’s what leaders do.
Does your team know where you want to go?
Have you painted that picture for them of a future that will give hope, direction and purpose?
Paint the picture.
Equip the team.
Drive them to win the race.
Be like Kennedy.
Leadership matters,
Brian
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