How to Develop and Deliver Mission and Vision (PFL Part 5)

In the last post, we talked about mission and vision – what they are and how to apply them so you can get team member adoption. In this post, we’ll talk about how you develop and deliver the team mission and vision to create engagement in your team members to their work.

Develop and Deliver the Mission and Vision

There are 3 steps to effectively developing and delivering the mission and vision to your team: (1) Use The 5 Cs, (2) Embrace Them, and (3) Communicate.

1. Develop the Mission and Vision with the 5 Cs

This whole process starts by you spending intentional time and mindspace thinking about and developing the mission and vision for each of the perspectives we discussed in the last post (their work, themselves, and the company/organization).  It all starts with YOU, so you must make this a priority.

Creating great mission and vision statements is a skill that you must develop. It may not feel easy for you. We’ll talk about how to build the skill and use it appropriately in future posts but for now let’s keep it short and to the point. Here are the most important aspects of developing a mission and a vision. I call them The 5 Cs of Effective Missions and Visions.

The 5Cs of Effective Missions and Visions

To develop effective missions and visions, you must make them clear, connecting, contextual, compelling, and challenging:

1. Clear – Your team members must be able to understand them.  The mission and vision should bring clarity to your team members on The Why and The Where.
2. Connecting – Your team members must be able to relate to and connect with the mission and vision to bring about their adoption.  If possible, include your team members in the development or evolution of the mission and vision to create extra connection.
3. Contextual – Your team members should gain context from the mission and vision to guide and direct them in their specific work so that you don’t have to control your team members’ actions and steps.
4. Compelling – You want your team members to be excited about the mission and vision to create motivation and perseverance.  A mission and vision should paint a picture bigger than any one individual to create overall team excitement.
5. Challenging – A mission and vision should be aspirational and not something overly simple or easy to attain.  They should feel bold and difficult (yet achievable) to drive you and your team toward great things.

To develop effective missions and visions, you must make them clear, connecting, contextual, compelling, and challenging. Share on X

2. Embrace The Mission and Vision

You as the leader must embrace the mission and vision first and foremost. You must champion and exemplify them to your team.  If you’re not innately excited about them and bought in to them, it will be hard for you to communicate in an effective way to your team. This will make it very difficult to get them to adopt the mission and vision for themselves.

3. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

You can successfully develop and embrace the mission and vision but then you have to communicate it to your team. Personally I think it’s so fun to get people excited about the mission/purpose and vision/future so I love this step! Seeing people get excited about their work is one of the best parts of leadership in my opinion. To communicate the mission and vision well, you need to make it intentional, continual, passionate, personal, and communal.

1. Intentional – Communication of the mission and vision takes intentional time and effort.  You need to find ways to weave them in to the rituals, habits, and structure of how your team does work.
2. Continual – You must continually communicate the mission and vision.  You need to always be on the look out for opportunities to talk about them and connect your team members to them. You’re never done.
3. Passionate – When you communicate it, you need to be excited and passionate about it.  Your team needs to feel your energy for it.
4. Personal – Each team member must see how they fit in to the mission and vision. You must find a way to make it personal and applicable. This increases their interest, which leads to their involvement and investment.
5. Communal – While you want it to be personal for each team member, you also want to find ways to create community around the mission and vision. Create fun, make it competitive, have contests, do something to bring the team together.

To communicate the mission and vision well, you need to make it intentional, continual, passionate, personal, and communal. Share on X

If You Don’t Get Adoption

If your team members don’t adopt the mission and vision, they won’t be as motivated, invested, or work as hard.  They will look at the mission and vision as yours and not theirs.  You will have to push and control your team to get things done.  If the team isn’t fully engaged, there are things that just won’t happen and that you can’t get back (e.g. going above and beyond, thinking creatively, solving problems that aren’t their own, helping others). Worse, your team members will be quick to make excuses or place blame for misunderstandings, mistakes, and failures…and they will likely place the blame on you.

Mission and Vision Adoption

If your people adopt the mission and vision as their own, they will take ownership in their work, the team, and the results like you wouldn’t believe.  They will be more engaged which will lead to great execution.  This makes your job WAY easier and exponentially increases the chances of successful results.  Instead of pushing your team members forward, you get to encourage, guide, and cheer them on, which is way more fun (and what true leadership is all about)!  Your team members will be more excited and fulfilled as they feel like they are doing meaningful, purposeful work as part of something bigger than themselves.  They will truly be engaged!

Now You’re Team Is Dangerous

There you go, that’s how to develop and deliver mission and vision to your team to create engagement.

With Step 1 (People Must Be First) and Step 2 (Mission and Vision Come Second) effectively completed you have a COMMITTED and ENGAGED team.  Now your team is dangerous and ready to make some noise! 🙂

These two outcomes complement one another perfectly to prepare you for the next step…time to go deliver amazing results with Step 3 (Results Happen Third).

With Step 1 (People Must Be First) and Step 2 (Mission and Vision Come Second) effectively completed you have a COMMITTED and ENGAGED team. Now your team is dangerous and ready to make some noise! Share on X

Discussion Questions – Let me know what you think

• What tips do you have for effectively developing, embracing, and/or communicating mission and vision?
• What’s your top action item or takeaway from this post?

This post is the fifth post in the my People First Leadership Framework series.

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Photo by Jens Johnsson on Unsplash