Leadership Success Begins with a Vision

Whether you use the word vision, dream, or revelation, the truth is the same. When there is no vision, people perish. They cast off restraint. They live unfocused, undisciplined, unproductive lives. They stop learning, growing, and changing. They stop leading and settle for maintaining.

What goal will take you a lifetime? What are your three- to five-year goals that will help move you in that direction? Having a vision, expressed in three- to five-year goals helps keep us on track to know where we want to go and to say no to some things and yes to others.

As I reflect back over my life, I am grateful for what I believe was a God-inspired vision that guided my choices. Consciously, and sometimes unconsciously, this dream helped me consistently develop three- to five-year plans that governed my steps. In middle school my goal was to go to high school. In high school it was to go to college. As a college freshman, I had a goal to graduate. The call of God changed my goal of retiring as an engineer to becoming a pastor/preacher. When starting seminary, my goal was to finish. While working as a twenty-eight-year-old pastor, my goal was to have two children in the next five years. My next five-year goal was to get a doctoral degree, then to write a book, then to get my kids through college, then to pay off my debt. All done.

People who try to live their lives and leaders who try to lead their groups without a vision find themselves settling for much less than they could achieve.

In the Acts 2:17, two words talk of visions or dreams. It says, “And it will be in the last days, says God, that I will pour out my Spirit on all people; then your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.”

Where Acts 2:17 says, “Old men will dream dreams,” the word used is "enupniois" from "hupnos". It is something seen in sleep: a dream or vision in a dream.

Old men dream dreams with either hope or regret. Which one we experience when we are old depends on how we have used our years and the choices we have made. If we have acted wisely and redeemed our time, when we get old we will have a sense of having lived a life full of satisfaction. 

Having a vision is essential to moving toward big results in your leadership.