Turning Vision into Reality

A vision provides the long-term strategic direction of your School.

However, it can prove difficult to translate the long-term vision into day-to-day activities and making sense of it all.

Effective School Leaders understand and apply the three critical ingredients to turn vision into reality.

Vision Alignment
In other words, it is to be clear about the vision. Peter Marshall once said, "Give us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for - because unless we stand for something we shall fall for anything”.

That would mean having a comprehensive set of indicators and milestones along the way to let us know where we're at currently, and where we want to be. Once these indicators and milesteones are clearly defined, the next step is to brainstorm about how to get there, formulate winning strategies, and work out a plan.

Journey of Change
Now that we have planned the work, we must now work the plan. Embarking on a journey to realise the vision usually requires us to do things differently. Taking the cue from Stephen R. Covey, "If you want to make incremental improvements, work on behaviors; but if you want to make quantum leaps, work on your paradigms."

Organizations resist change because people become comfortable with the way things are and they prefer what's familiar. Hence, it would require the leadership to re-examine the mental-models of the School; then filtering down to re-looking at whether current programs, practices, and policies are reinforcing the desired behaviors that would lead us towards the vision.

Engaged Mastery
With changes, come resistance. Therefore, it is critical to understand the concerns of the people. In John Maxwell's “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership”; under relationships it is said that, "If You Get Along, They’ll Go Along".

On this journey towards the vision, there will be speed-bumps along the way. As such, it would require each individual staff member to not only have personal mastery, but engaged mastery so that it would create an environment of high trust. This happens when everyone lives by the values of the School and also have the necessary competencies to achieve the vision. Only then, can the School fulfill its mission.