142 Strategic Leadership
The basic idea of vision is not esoteric or fanciful but is the soul of strategy and
of leadership. If, regarding identity, we inquire, “Who are we?” and concerning
mission we wonder, “Why do we exist?” then in terms of vision, we ask, “To what
do we aspire?” We use a metaphor of sight to refer to an institution’s discernment
of its best possibilities for the future. The dependence of strategy itself on vision is
articulated well by Burt Nanus: “A good strategy may be indispensable in coordi-
nating management decisions and preparing for contingencies, but a strategy has
cohesion and legitimacy only in the context of a clearly articulated and widely
shared vision of the future. A strategy is only as good as the vision that guides
it, which is why purpose and intentions tend to be more powerful than plans in
directing organizational behavior” (1992, 30). Without using the words, Nanus is
describing the relationship of strategy to leadership. The presence of an effective
vision in strategy is the condition that grounds and enables the process and disci-
pline of strategic leadership. When all is said and done, one of the most extraor-
dinary human capacities will drive the process, namely, the ability to imagine the
future in order to create it. When the circumstances are right, humans can turn
their images of the future into reality by committing skill, imagination, resolve,
and resources to the task. Many of the central components of strategic leadership
arise out of this extraordinary human ability.
The intellectual synthesis required to create a vision is complex and difficult.
While being rigorous and analytical, strategic decisions must also be innovative
and imaginative. To grasp possibilities that are not yet fully formed, strategic
reflection, again, has to rely on stories as well as concepts, images, and metaphors,
along with facts. Narratives of identity and aspiration both require a penetrating
use of language. We speak of “greatness” or “eminence” or “distinction” and try to
grasp and convey the emerging meaning of education in “cyberspace,” of “engaged”
learning, of “diversity,” of “global education,” and of education as “discovery” and
“empowerment.” Each concept conveys a complex set of meanings that strategic
leadership must first explain and then enact through a set of strategies, goals, and
actions. An effective vision is a quintessential form of sense making and sense
giving that often takes a narrative form (cf. Gioia and Thomas 2000).
The Moral Significance of a Vision
To focus strategy in a vision is to learn again in a compelling way that leader-
ship is about the human condition. It touches deep layers of human agency and
motivation, of human limits and possibilities. A vision of the future reaches us
as beings that live and move as temporal beings. Without images and patterns
that make sense of our personal and collective memories, we would not be the
selves we are, nor would we find meaning in our relationships and responsibili-
ties. Because our time is limited, both in the tasks we assume and in the days of
our lives, we experience the intensity of our finitude and seek achievements and
meanings that will endure. Whether as individuals or as members of the smaller
or larger communities in which we participate, we try to grasp the future through