Seeing the Future

Regardless of position, every leader has the duty to picture a brighter future, and to inspire others to create a better tomorrow.

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth." ~ John F. Kennedy, May 25, 1961

With those words, President Kennedy cast the vision for perhaps the most spectacular feat ever undertaken by the United States of America. His ambitious vision captivated the imagination of the Americans, and it motivated the nation's brightest scientists and astronauts to pursue a seemingly impossible mission.

No one, even a generation earlier, could have fathomed a man walking around on the moon. Consider that only 50 years before Kennedy's speech, most Americans were traveling by horse and buggy! In those days, sending a man to the moon would have seemed just as ridiculous as traveling backwards in time. Amazingly, NASA accomplished Kennedy's daring vision when the crew of Apollo 11 landed on the moon in July of 1969. Within a dozen years of JFK's speech, 24 Americans had walked on the surface of the moon. America had done the impossible, and the entire country took pride in the accomplishment.

In their article, "The Higher Plane of Leadership," Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller give seeing the future the top spot on their list of qualities held by servant leaders. When so many people float through life without a strong sense of direction, a leader serves by linking others to a purpose greater than their own self-interest.

In the case of President Kennedy, the vision to land on the moon rallied millions of Americans with a sense of meaning, and it turned a fanciful dream into a concrete reality. However, Blanchard and Miller caution against assuming that vision comes only from world leaders or history's heroes. In their words, such assumptions, "fuel the myth that creating and communicating a compelling vision is someone else's responsibility." Regardless of position, every leader has the duty to picture a brighter future, and to inspire others to create a better tomorrow.

If visions only started with Presidents and CEO's, then we'd have a small number of elite leaders surrounded by a sea of mindless followers. Blanchard and Miller argue that leaders must have visions aside from those of their leaders, "Although vision from the top is critically important, it is no substitute for personal vision, vision for your team, your department, or your division." One could argue that President Kennedy's vision to land on the moon was made possible by countless supporting visions of NASA scientists, engineers, and astronauts. By himself, JFK would never have been able to put the pieces in play to see the future come to pass. He relied on the visions of leaders at every level of government to develop the vehicles, systems, and programs to make landing on the moon possible.