What True Leadership Really Is

The following is an excerpt from the book Vision to Results: Leadership in Action by Jim Fischetti.

The biggest vision in the room always wins.

This might not be a new idea, but it’s one that too many leaders forget. When leaders forget about the importance of vision, they are not the only ones who suffer — so does each member of the organization they lead.

In his book The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs, author Carmine Gallo examines vision as the core principle underlying the most fundamental societal change since Gutenberg. Gallo relates the story of a young software programmer named Rob Campbell. Nearly three decades before disruption became a buzzword, Campbell began to grow increasingly fascinated by the possibilities of personal computing. Campbell could sense in this emerging field a world-changing technology, and he wanted in.

At the time, there were only three players in the PC market: Tandy, Commodore, and Apple. Only one of these companies had a leader whose vision allowed them to understand that they were standing on the front lines of a revolution; the other two knew only that there was a little bit of money to be made.

Campbell went on a quest to claim his own place in the PC revolution. First, he interviewed with Tandy, the first giant in the world of personal computing. During the interview, Campbell asked a simple question: “What is your vision for the personal computer?” The response was less than inspiring. “We think it can be a huge hit in the upcoming holiday season,” they told him.

Unsatisfied, Campbell next interviewed with Commodore. At the time, Gallo notes, Commodore’s stock price hovered around $1 per share. Their response to Campbell’s vision question? “We think the PC can help us get our stock price over $2 per share.”

Utterly deflated by the myopia of these industry leaders, Campbell scheduled a lunch interview with Jobs, then in his first stint as CEO at Apple. Although Gallo doesn’t say, it’s not hard to imagine Campbell approaching this meeting with a certain amount of fatalism. Although Tandy and Commodore executives had each expressed to Campbell some sort of vision for their companies, he didn’t feel compelled to join either. He didn’t connect with their vision for their companies. The scope of what these companies wanted, and what they thought the PC could achieve, was far smaller than what the young and ambitious Campbell himself had for the technology. None of us would blame him for approaching the Jobs interview prepared for yet another disappointment. This was, after all, before Steve Jobs was Steve Jobs. At the time, Campbell likely thought of him as just another tech CEO with similarly shortsighted aims for the PC.

Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, we know that Steve Jobs was anything but just another tech CEO with limited vision and insight. Campbell learned this early on in the time he spent with Jobs on that day in 1977.

Campbell broke out his usual question early in their interview. “What is your vision for the personal computer?” he asked once again. This time, instead of a glib reply about holiday sales or vague promises for a boost in stock prices, Campbell’s query was met with an impassioned response about the way the PC was going to change the way we work, how we actually did work, how we interact with each other, and how we educate our children and entertain ourselves. It took Jobs an hour to answer Campbell’s question. Jobs explained his vision for the PC as one of the biggest advances in humanity since the development of Gutenberg’s printing press.

Forty years later, I’d say Jobs was pretty spot-on, and not just about the future of the PC. What Campbell’s experience reveals is the way a leader’s vision can be both limiting and liberating. The fact that Tandy and Commodore are no longer with us suggests that it’s not enough simply to hold a vision for your organization. True leadership involves creating a vision, communicating it with evangelistic fervor, and holding people accountable.

Simple enough, right? So why does it seem so rare in practice?

The Tesla Conundrum And The Uber Fix

Even products that ought to do well in a red-hot market might not perform well in the presence of shaky leadership. Consider Tesla, the electric automobile manufacturer. Consumers love Tesla. The demand for their products couldn’t be higher. There’s a waiting list to buy a car for crying out loud, and yet the company continues to struggle financially.

It has endured slowdowns in production. Layoffs. Staff turnover. Missed goals, particularly production numbers on their incredibly anticipated Tesla Model 3. At the moment, its very future seems less than assured.

Why?

The reality is that Elon Musk seems unhinged right now. He’s all over the place. His Board of Directors basically had to order him to stop using Twitter. Being a visionary doesn’t automatically make you a leader.

Musk is a great example of a brilliant guy who’s not cutting it as a leader. He’s performed poorly on investor calls and tried to intimidate people who had legitimate questions about the way Tesla is run. Ultimately, the biggest problem Tesla faces is a lack of clear expectations from the top. People don’t know what Tesla is trying to accomplish. Want proof? I bet you can’t answer this simple question: Are they a battery company or a car company right now?

Almost every one of the telltale signs of poor leadership is present in Tesla at the moment.

Now let’s take a look at Uber. Once upon a time, not that long ago, Uber was in similar straits as Tesla. Travis Kalanick was a deeply flawed CEO. His poor people skills permeated the entire culture of the company, all the way down to the drivers. Morale was in the dumps. For Uber to find its way back to form, for it to fix its culture and begin hitting its performance targets, Kalanick had to go. The fix for Uber was a top-down deal that began with exchanging a leader who was unable or unwilling to execute a vision for someone who could.

It’s a simple lesson but one fundamental to the message of this book: leadership without vision isn’t leadership. A vision not communicated by the leader is merely “words on the wall.” Holding your people accountable to live the company’s vision is hard sometimes, but the opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s apathy. Accountability is an act of love.

All Roads Lead From A Compelling Vision

If you’ve recognized your organization in any of what you’ve read so far, great! I’m here to offer a solution. We’ll delve into the mechanics of this solution as the book goes along, but it’s important to understand off the bat that good leadership begins with a compelling vision.

That compelling vision is the answer to the big question. It’s here that every leader must begin: What is this company about, and how are we going to achieve our goals?

We’ll spend a lot of time talking about how to conjure up this compelling vision and, even more importantly, how to have the biggest vision in any room. For now, remember this: the most important thing you can do to make your vision a reality is to talk about it.

A lot.

In fact, talk about your vision until you can’t talk about it any longer. Then talk about it some more.

Jack Welch, perhaps the single most-admired CEO in the history of modern American corporations, once said that he spent 70 percent of his working days communicating his vision to his employees. Upon retiring, he said his only regret was that he hadn’t spent even more time at it.

When a leader gives this much care and attention to communicating their vision, a synergy between the troops and the leader will emerge, which manifests through the vision. If connection is one of the keys of corporeal success for any organization, then the consistent communication of a compelling vision is the muscle for that body.

My Vision

As part of my four decades as a successful leader and executive, I’ve made it my life’s pursuit to study leadership in all its forms. Over those years of study, I’ve come to a few conclusions that, once put into action, have proven incredibly effective.

I’ve used the principles I’ll share in this book to grow a $4 billion organization of four thousand employees into one double that size and with $13 billion in revenue. I’ve had to figure out how to effectively lead nearly ten thousand employees spread across fifty different locations. I’ve enjoyed an incredibly successful and rewarding career building and leading corporations based on the principles of vision, communication, and accountability we’ll be examining in depth throughout this book.

This book is the distillation of decades of thought, experience, stinging failure and immense success, and everything in between. In the pages that follow, I’ll share with you all the principles that have driven my success and show you how they can contribute to yours as well.

Think back to Rob Campbell and the question he asked the execs at Tandy, Commodore, and Apple: What is your vision? If you were to ask me for my vision of what real leadership looks like and how to put that vision to use for yourself in ways that will improve your life both professionally and personally, this book would be my answer. It is my hope that you walk away with a perspective you haven’t yet considered, a renewed energy to lead and get results for you, your people, and your organization.

As is probably clear by now, vision is the foundation of everything that will follow, and as you’ll see, there is a crisis in leadership that begins with vision. Let’s start there.

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To keep reading, pick up your copy of Vision to Results: Leadership in Action by Jim Fischetti on Amazon.