FROM VISION TO VISIONARY 169 a few words on a plaque somewhere, but a living, breathing purpose that guides your decisions. People will follow your lead. If you want to be a visionary, you have to believe in the path with every ounce of who you are. It is personal. A Visionary Creates Shared Understanding For vision to inspire and mobilize, it must be shared among the group. Otherwise, it is more of a private goal than a group vision. And while the leader must personally buy in and believe, others must personally invest as well. Sharing a vision is never as easy as it seems. Here's what usually happens: Step 1. A person or elite group of people develops a vision. Step 2. The vision is announced to a larger group. Step 3. Everyone is expected to embrace the vision for its magnificence. Step 4. The vision fades to the background. Truly visionary leaders use their presence to encourage others to be part of the vision. It's like developing trust: People have to elect to come toward a vision--it can't be pushed on them. If you push too hard, it begins to feel like coercion, and people will shut out your vision People come toward a vision. Similar to trust, it entirely. As a leader trying to get people to can't be forced. embrace a vision, one of the best ap- proaches is to open up your thinking and invite others to help define the vision--before your mind is made up. It can't be a symbolic, after- the-fact gesture. The great management guru Peter Senge talks of "learning organizations" combining advocacy with inquiry. 4 In this approach, leaders advocate for their position and then inquire how others feel about it. Instead of defending their ideas as objections emerge, leaders continually sharpen them while soliciting other ideas until everyone in the room has offered input. I've taken this process a step further as it relates to inspiring a group to set a vision. (It also works beautifully for any situation that American Management Association · www.amanet.org