In my last post I talked about how direction is needed to ensure the growth of a community. This is one reason why leadership matters. To often, we as leaders get caught up in this idea of vision casting and honestly it is just a way to make ourselves feel good. More seriously, it is not as viable a tool due to our American understanding of vision. Our understanding of vision answers where and why but without direction and navigation it does not matter where and why if we cannot act on how.

Lately, I have heard this is where we are headed and this is why we are doing this in different communities, but the question of "how" is missing. Leaders are navigators. John Maxwell is often quoted as saying anyone can steer the ship, but it takes a leader to chart the course. Leaders matter because without them there is a real chance that we would sail aimlessly indefinitely.

Where there is no direction, the people crumble. I can have a clear sense of where I need a group to go. I can tell them we are standing here at point A and that we need to get to point B. I can clearly point out where point B is and clearly indicate to my group/followers where point B is.

The important piece of information is that we have no idea what is in between these two points. Our journey to point B will inevitably not be linear. There will be obstacles and downfalls that throw the group off course so we will need to get back on course. Straight-line approach has been ruled out here because honestly that is just how life is.

What I have described is an organization that has cast vision. They know where they currently are and they know where they are headed. They know they will incur adversities that will throw them off course and that they will have to realign themselves to go where they want to go.

What if the group was truly leaderless (there is a leaderless leadership construct I will discuss later this year) and was told to get from point A to point B? Without the leader to give direction (and unify) the group would crumble in the space between A and B. They would encounter obstacles that would throw them off-course and without direction they would wander aimlessly. Having a leader is important because they offer this direction/navigation that allows groups to engage obstacles and get back on course. Leaders are course-charters and without them how would we know when, where and how to reorient ourselves when when we are blind-sided by a wave.