#🌱 #🟠 # Does a shared vision require a shared why? ![[calendar-plus.svg]] <small>Nov 05, 2022</small> | ![[calendar-clock.svg]] <small>Jan 02, 2023</small> 🏷️ [[Leadership MOC]] Reading Wheatley (2006), with all her scientific metaphors, is fascinating and also a bit exhausting. Or maybe that's just a lack of sleep on my part. I found Hemerling's (2016) explanation of leading in an era of constant change to be more direct and relatable. Hemerling (2016) talks about an "era of always on transformation" (2:00) which is much like Wheatley's (2006) conversation about autopoiesis, where a living system never rests and is always seeking self-renewal. Hemerling (2016) notes that, as opposed to self-transformation, organizational change is typically exhausting. He argues that it is leaders and organizations who make change harder than it needs to be by waiting too long to act, focusing on short-term results, and taking superficial, one-off approaches before trying to go back business as usual. Wheatley (2006) would argue that these leaders are operating from a Newtonian perspective where ". . . cause and effect, of force acting upon force, required great expenditures of personal energy. . ." (p. 50). Just as Wheatley (2006) argues that we need to focus on relationships, Hemerling (2016) contends that the way to energize organizational change is by putting people first. He lays out five strategic imperatives that are very similar to the five leadership practices proposed by Kouzes & Posner (2017). Hemerling's (2016) first imperative to inspire through purpose lines up well with what, according to my results from the SLPI (Kouzes & Posner, 1998), is one of my stronger leadership practices. However, two of the leadership behaviors that I ranked low on were "Talks about values and principles" and "Aligns others with principles and standards" (Kouzes & Posner, 1998). I think the key for me may be in understanding vision as a field of influence instead of a place or destination (Wheatley, 2006). Wheatley suggests that in the field view of organizations we must first attend to clarity, which I excel at, and then make certain everyone has access to the field. This is the part that I need to work on developing through Kouzes' & Posner's (2017) practice of modeling the way. Instead of designing, assembling, and creating all the links and structures for a vision, Wheatley argues that we need to "imagine ourselves as beacon towers of information, standing tall in the integrity of what we say" and that if we do "a powerful field develops - and with it, the wonderous capacity to organize into coherent, capable form" (p. 57). The vision then is much more than an organizational goal, it's what Hemerling (2016) describes as a connection with a deeper sense of purpose. So, not what we are trying to do or where we are trying to go, but _why_. I believe in organizations it is important to have a shared vision of what we are trying to accomplish (a common agenda), but do you think we need to have a shared why? Can your personal why be different from the organization's and, if so, how do you go about leading others who may have a different why? ## Sources Hemerling, J. (2016). *5 ways to lead in an era of constant change* [Video]. TED. [https://www.ted.com/talks/jim_hemerling_5_ways_to_lead_in_an_era_of_constant_change?referrer=playlist-tips_for_inclusive_leadership#t-276664](https://www.ted.com/talks/jim_hemerling_5_ways_to_lead_in_an_era_of_constant_change?referrer=playlist-tips_for_inclusive_leadership#t-276664) [[Student Leadership Practices Inventory (SLPI)]] [[The Leadership Challenge - Kouzes & Posner 2017]] [[Leadership and the New Science - Wheatley 2006]]