Vision Setting: How Leadership Communication Empowers Workers and Teams

Abstract

The modern corporation—inspired by the success of digital technology companies—aspires toward a flatter structure empowering less senior members with influence and decision making over their direction. Vision has always been important in successful organizations. It unites and gives purpose to the workforce. More traditional, hierarchical, tops-down organizations had only the top management layers to align for strategic decision making. From that, they dictated the tasks, processes and goals for the rest of the organization to follow keeping the organization aligned. Decision making is now pushed out to the edges. Modern firms value intellectual property built by knowledge workers with powerful technology tools. Research and development is critical to remaining competitive. Creativity is stifled by rigid direction and processes. Thus, workers are empowered to build the future of the company. However, uncoordinated work can lead to scattershot product development. A vision—and leaderships ability to effectively communicate it—are critical in today’s fast moving economy. Several techniques for communicating vision in a modern company are discussed.