As a country and society we are fascinated with vision. Much of our current dissatisfaction with politics in general and politicians specifically is the current vacuum of vision, compelling vision that inspires, challenges and even moves us to new frontiers. Think about how much time you spend thinking about tomorrow versus focusing on today.
The truth is, if we are honest, while we aspire even pine for vision in our daily lives, it is an incredibly rare commodity. Truer still, visions generally require visionaries – leaders who grasp, articulate and then achieve a particular vision. These leaders, visionary leaders are even rarer still.
Take two widely and commonly accepted visionary leaders from two very different fields: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Steve Jobs. While operating in completely different spheres – civil rights and technology – these historic figures led our nation through some dramatic changes. It may seem odd to compare these two individuals given that their contributions to society while massive are completely different – one changed the lives and freedom of an entire race of people while the other made amazing products – yet both were inspiring, empowering, freeing types of leaders nonetheless.
But these visionaries like most visionary leaders are viewed as such with the benefit of extensive hindsight. Dr. King ‘s initial leadership during the infamous Montgomery bus boycott as a 26-year-old minister was so unanticipated that by his own admission he did not have time to think it through because if he had he would have declined the nomination.
Steve Jobs was very publicly fired from the company he founded, Apple, at the young age of 30. Jobs didn’t know what to do for several months during this low point and even considered alternate careers ranging from entering politics to becoming an astronaut.
Notice what happened from both of these turning points with both of these men. What did not happen is that a broad and expansive vision emerged to change the world. Rather a deep and narrow conviction around whom they were and what they were to do next emerged. For Dr. King, that conviction meant having the moral courage to take a stand for civil rights for African Americans by organizing a citywide boycott of buses in Montgomery, AL. For Jobs, it was a conviction that being fired did not change his love for creating new products with technology and so he started another company.
Vision, the ability to vision, is a forward-looking trait. It requires a sense of the future and taking risks on the uncertainty of that future. This is indeed a rare skill. Conviction on the other hand, involves resting on what you already know – standing on the rightness of your current view – knowing and believing deeply that you are on the right side of right on a given issue. With conviction, the real risk is not acting on your conviction and doing nothing.
Conviction is what causes men and women to leap forward into the unknown, which if the conviction is deep enough and the leader courageous enough, leads to vision, but over time and with the benefit of hindsight. While vision may be rare, conviction is something we all can possess.
If you’ve been reading our blog and website, you’ll know that Matchbook Learning has a deep conviction about what’s wrong with public education as a whole and how its solution lies within the untapped potential of our nation’s bottom 5% children. While our vision will only truly emerge clear and proven with hindsight, it is on the strength of this conviction that we march forward.
What is your conviction? How are you acting on it?
