In his post about Servant Leadership, Norm posed a question about the practical ways a servant leader can balance the long-term goals with the day-to-day processes. In my experience, I have found that knowing how the day-to-day processes tie into the bigger vision of the organization helps me hold both perspectives in balance. I have found that when the long-term vision is not talked about it is easy to get caught up in the daily tasks.

This is something my organization is walking through at the moment. A few years ago we went through a merger. This resulted in us writing new mission and vision statements. I was involved in the process of writing these, which took quite a while and many meetings, and so these are seared into my mind. Since that time, we have had many new staff join our organization, but we do not talk about our mission and vision statement often. This has become a problem because there are hardly any staff who would even know what our mission and vision statement are. I am of the opinion that if we spent more time communicating our mission and vision statements, and how what we are doing day-to-day help us towards accomplishing them, it would boost morale and help everyone not get discouraged by what can sometimes be the tediousness of the day-to-day tasks. Furthermore, I think that it would help us as an organization have more of a unified commitment, operating more as a team and less as a work group (Northouse, 2016).

To give a practical suggestion, I would propose that leaders who spend time clearly articulating, to themselves and those they are leading, how their day-to-day tasks and goals support and move their team towards their long-term goals and vision, the easier time they and their team will have holding the two perspectives in balance. When we understand that our long-term vision cannot be accomplished without the day-to-day tasks, and that those tasks are building the long-term vision it helps us have a good attitude about the tedious tasks because we understand why they are necessary and it produces the drive towards the long-term vision to keep going. I think the best way to do this is to talk about it often, not just to remind those we are leading, but also to remind ourselves.

References:

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice, Seventh Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.