Have you ever been in a job where your “shacho” or your immediate boss had no idea of where the company is heading and was unable to lead your team into action? That is one of the most commonly heard complaints in my recruiting practice.

I recently had a candidate come to see me who was wanting to leave his company because his boss was so focused on the immediate day-to-day operations as well as protecting his power and position in the short-term that the candidate had no confidence in his boss’ ability to lead their division towards growth and profitability. His exact words were, “my boss has no vision and I’m tired, not inspired”.

It is shocking how often I hear this. The flip-side of this is when I attempt to recruit people from companies that have visionary leadership. You can imagine the outcome…many of them don’t want to move because they are fully engaged with the vision of their company or their direct boss and they are working toward an inspiring goal.

If you’re a leader now, you’d better make damn sure that you know where your business is going (vision) and how you’re going to get them there (strategy and tactics). If you’re an aspiring leader don’t forget about those times you suffered from poor leadership and how you felt about your boss. I can imagine that you don’t want to become one of them when you get the chance to lead.

I’ll be covering this subject more in-depth in future postings. What’s important to remember is the danger of visionless leadership and its effect on an organization. Beware.