I can never forget a rather hilarious sunday when a man selling his own self published books came up to me trying to convince me to buy his book with a promise that I would get rich in 30days. This should have been really great except something wasn’t quite right with the “cover”. I am not speaking of the book cover but Mr salesman/author himself. His shoes were looking to heaven for a sign, with mouth wide open, his shirt was off white, nearing brown, his suit was very holy (full of holes) and his trousers were quite afraid of touching the ground.
And the the title of his book? ‘How to be a millionaire in 30 days’.
It surely didn’t work for him. Out of embarrassment for the poor guy, all I could do was decline politely. Perhaps if he looked impressive, I might have been convinced.
The same is applicable to leadership. As a leader, If you’ve got a vision, but you are wondering if people will buy into your vision, the first thing to really ask yourself is – “Do my people buy into Me?”
Too many times we approach the area of vision in leadership backwards. As leaders we often believe if the cause is good enough, people will automatically buy into it and follow. But that’s not how leadership really works. People don’t just follow a worthy cause, they follow worthy leaders who promote causes they can believe in.
People buy into the leader first, then the leader’s vision. When we understand this solid fact, it changes our whole approach to leading people.
Have you given your people reason to buy into you? If yes, then they will buy into your vision. If you haven’t built credibility with your people, then it really doesn’t matter how great the vision is.
Entrepreneurs just starting out, often find it tough getting investors to help get their ideas and enterprise off the ground. Sadly some never find backing. But whenever an entrepreneur succeeds once, he finds it easy to find money the next time around. Many times the investor is not even interested in what the entrepreneurs vision is, just because they’ve already bought into the person, they readily accept the idea.
Every message that people receive is filtered through the messenger who delivers it. If you believe the messenger to be credible, then you believe the message has value. This is why companies enlist popular athelets and actors to endorse or promote their products.
One thing you must know is that you cannot separate the leader from the cause they promote. It cannot be done. No matter how hard you try. It isn’t an either/or proposition.
Take a look at how people react to leaders and their vision under different circumstances:
- When followers don’t like the leader or the vision they look for another leader. The only time people will follow a leader they don’t like with a vision they don’t believe in is when the leader has some kind of leverage. It could be anything from a blackmail to witholding a paycheck. If the follower has a choice in the matter. They don’t follow. And even if they don’t have a choice they start to look for another leader to follow.
- When followers like the leader but Not the vision, they change the vision. When followers do not like a leader’s vison they do all they can to try to convince the leader to change the vision, some times they abandon their own point and take on the leader’s. Sometimes they compromise. They never outrightly reject the leader.
- When followers like the leader and the vision. They get behind both. When followers believe in their leader and his vision, they follow even in the worst of times.
As a leader, having a great vision or worthy cause is not enough to get people to follow you. You have to become a better leader. You need to get your people to buy into you. That’s the price you have to pay if you want your vision to have a chance of becoming a reality.
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