Vision is an intangible but critical asset for a CEO to drive high performance.
In two recent articles, we have examined whether there is a need for a CEO school and what the foundations of effective CEOs are to try and understand whether the top job is one that can be learned or whether it’s even a profession one can be schooled in. In a series of interviews with chief executives from Jeff Immelt to Bob Dudley among many others, we found that a deep understanding of personal values mixed with traits such as curiosity, ambition and passion often lay the groundwork for CEOs to formulate effective “visions.”
But how important is this quality in the top job? Vision is a popular term these days, but the CEOs we interviewed shared a very specific notion of a good business vision. For them vision is a continuous work-in-progress, one of the major tasks of any CEO, which requires time, effort, investment, experimentation and reflection. The company vision should evolve as its business environment evolves, but it has to be crystal clear at every given moment it time. This
via The Importance of Leadership “Vision” | INSEAD Knowledge.