Organizational vision: the other side of the coin.

Executive Summary

Vision is the essence of leadership that brings about change in the life of organizations. The present paper argues that three critical components, the qualities of an organization's leader, the attributes of the followers and the nature of the environment must be taken into consideration by the leader in articulating an organizational vision. The paper offers a classification of organizational visions and discusses some likely consequences of disregarding them. Some examples are drawn from educational settings. Implications and conclusions about the gains and losses that leaders with different operational orientations may face when articulating a vision are also discussed.

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   There is no more powerful engine driving an organization toward excellence 
   and long-range success than an attractive worthwhile, and achievable vision 
   of the future, widely shared. (Nanus 1992) 

Vision is one of the key elements of effective leadership in organizational settings. As indicated by Bennis and Nanus (1985), lack of a clear vision is a major cause of the declining effectiveness of many organizations in recent years. This assertion is shared by many scholars (e.g., Peters & Waterman, 1982; Terry, 1993) who have argued for the importance of organizational vision and, as such, for the need to update visions periodically because of on-going changes that are taking place in an ever-evolving environment. Organizations should follow the direction set forth in the vision and, because the vision serves as a compass to the organization's members, it must not only be defined in general terms and be inspirational, but must also accurately reflect the internal qualities of the organization and its interactions with the environment.

Because of its great importance, vision has been studied by scholars from both educational settings (e.g., Bell & Harrison, 1995; Holmes, 1993; Sergiovanni, 1990, 1996) and non-educational ones (e.g., Nanus, 1992; Terry, 1993; Yukl, 1994). Sergiovanni (1990) argues, that "vision gets the most attention in the leadership literature" (p. 57) because it has been credited for the success of organizational leadership on the one hand, and blamed for organizational leadership failure, on the other. Since a vision is essential for organizational effectiveness and is used as a major leadership tool, its articulation requires a sufficient degree of clarity.

Conceptualizing a vision: The vision as a dream