One of a leader's foremost responsibilities is predicting the likelihood of future events and planning accordingly. A leader's effectiveness at this task derives from a number of sources: time and space for strategic thinking, access to critical data, a knack for pattern-recognition--or the ability to hire others with the requisite skills and make use of their recommendations.
As a result, good leaders spend a material portion of their time envisioning the future--weeks, months, and even years ahead of the people around them. They peer over the horizon and get a sense of what it might be like to live there. This capability can be a tremendous asset--but only when it's coupled with the ability to influence others to adopt and act upon that same vision. In the absence of this capability, even the most far-seeing leader will suffer the fate of Cassandra in Greek myth: Blessed with the gift of prophecy, doomed to never be believed.
Imagine there's a rubber band connecting the leader with the people around them. When the leader travels forward in time to envision the future, the rubber band stretches. This produces a useful and necessary tension between the leader's vision and everyone else's current reality, which, under the right circumstances, can move people to adopt this vision of the future and begin to act accordingly. But if the leader runs too far ahead or pulls too hard in an effort to bring people along, the rubber band breaks. There's a rupture between the leader's vision of the future and everyone else's current reality, and the leader loses influence as a result.
If good leaders spend time living in the future, great leaders perfect the skill of inducing others to join them there. Sometimes this entails active efforts to shape and influence others' views--but it also requires the ability to abstain from taking action when necessary. Because the foresighted leader not only assesses the likelihood of future events, but also pays close attention to current trends and the extent to which they are sweeping other people along in their wake, with or without further action by the leader.
The great leader steps into the future just far enough to encourage the people around them to consider the possibility of this alternative reality, but not so far ahead that their vision is dismissed or ignored. The great leader allows the combined force of their vision of the future and the movement of current trends to bring people along without unnecessary force by the leader or undue stress on others. The rubber band stretches, but it does not break.
Is this always possible? No, of course not. Events rarely align so neatly. But it's something to strive for, and here's how this process shows up every day in my coaching practice: The leaders I work with are tasked with looking into a volatile and uncertain future and placing high-stakes bets on what they believe to be the likely outcomes. They will inevitably be compelled to make decisions with imperfect and incomplete data. And they must do this while leading teams that include a number of people who are manifesting various forms of anxiety: aggression, panic, paralysis, denial.
The metaphorical bands that bind the leaders in my practice to the people around them are fraying under the strain. They must not break. My clients must maintain sufficient tension to help move their organizations and their employees forward, without putting so much pressure on people and systems that the bands rupture. It is a delicate balance.
For Further Reading
Aggression, Panic, Paralysis and Denial
How to Cross Antarctica (On Surviving Chaos)
The Importance of Shared Narrative
Adapted from Leadership in Crisis (FDR and the Rubber Band Effect).
Photo by laogooli.
