The roles of the manager are many and varied. Among their various responsibilities, managers must ensure that a vision is communicated. As a guarantor of harmony, sharing and meaning, this skill lies at the heart of the managerial function.
Assess Manager uses the managerial skills reference framework to measure a manager’s ability to convey a vision.
But what exactly is a vision? How is it useful? And how can it be conveyed when it is not clearly communicated by management?
Corporate vision: the starting point for success stories..
Everyone will agree that Bill Gates had a vision: “a computer in every home”
Inkvar Kamprad had a vision for IKEA: “create a better everyday life for the many people”
MACDonald’s vision is as follows: “To be the best quick service restaurant experience”
These statements are simple and memorable for employees, and help to ensure that the strategy is always in line with the vision.
Vision and corporate culture
Creating buy-in and uniting the team means sharing a common organisational vision.
The company’s history, culture and values are the manager’s best allies in giving meaning to collective work. Shining a light on the vision that has brought the company to where it is today is a first step, one that conveys values and is directly linked to the company’s culture.
Who are we today and how did we get to where we are?
It is up to the manager to communicate the answers to these questions on a daily basis, to reinforce the feeling of belonging and pride.
Passing on a vision is part of the future
Passing on a vision means affirming the achievements of the present, but above all giving a vision for the future. A vision is akin to a dream; it determines the company’s strategy and drives its ambitions. It sets the objectives that will be deployed within the company and is a source of meaning.
Taking the time to think about, inform and discuss future actions, linking them to the company’s vision, is not a wasted investment: it’s what enables managers to create a team, working towards shared success.
Communicating a vision means rallying people around a shared vision, bringing their views together.
It also means giving meaning by linking the day-to-day actions of employees to the company’s vision, so as to enhance their usefulness and their contribution to the group’s success.
How do you communicate a vision when it’s not clear?
Not all companies have a clear strategy, or one that is clearly communicated.
– If it is a problem of communication, it is up to the manager for whom the vision is not clear to find out.
– If it’s not clear because it’s not really thought through, which sometimes happens, the task becomes harder for the manager, because it requires qualities that not everyone has:
They need to have a sense of strategy themselves and be able to decipher actions in a broader sense, and validate them with their superiors.
But in the end, if every manager who couldn’t identify a clear strategy asked his or her No. 1 to clarify it, we’d inevitably end up with the company’s CODIR! Some might say “utopian”… If that sounds like you, why not give it a try?
In conclusion, the vision is the company’s ambition, its dream. Increasingly imbued with ethics, its aim is to lead employees towards this shared dream, to give it meaning so that they feel proud of the road they have travelled and still have to travel, and of the actions they take on a daily basis.
The vision is the company’s energy reserve.
The manager’s ability to convey it is therefore essential in his or her role as manager…
You’re a manager: do you know how to use your company’s vision to motivate your teams?
You are a director or the instigator of the company’s vision: do you know how to formulate it, put it into practice and disseminate it?
The Assess Manager test helps you answer these questions: for yourself and your (future) employees.
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