Vision is a combination of:

• The act or power of anticipating that which will or may come to be, and
• Influencing circumstance to deliver (or move toward) a predetermined objective that aligns with bold possibility.

Leadership (regardless of style) is action driven by vision in pursuit of a consensus objective; (consensus may come about in a number of different ways). Toward the other end of the spectrum, to respond to a perceived urgency is a subservient reaction driven by noise and is not leadership regardless of who may follow.

That said, on occasion noise must be addressed. More often than not noise can and should be dismissed and/or ignored; or filed away for later attention. It is one thing to be distracted by an urgency and sidetracked from your vision. It is another thing to be entirely driven by perceived urgencies; and for someone entirely driven by perceived urgencies, someone with limited or no vision, occasionally urgencies are fabricated to justify direction.

The less encompassing the vision (to consider all possibility), the more shortsighted it becomes.

To take advantage of a leadership position to execute a personal vision in pursuit of an individually advantageous objective is also not leadership - it is selfish blind ignorance. And vision constrained by bureaucracy and/or fear though perhaps not perceived as an urgency is still a subservient reaction driven by noise.

Even when forewarned of imminent disruptive change, there are those incapable of taking action until the change occurs and urgency smacks them upside the head. An example of this is us regarding climate change; we have not yet been smacked upside the head - at least not hard enough. Sadly, I believe this is becoming our nature. It seems most of us don’t see the necessity of change, of improvement, until it forces itself upon us, and even then we still try to turn our heads away and pretend that we’re okay for another day, and another, and another, and another… Yet I see it (this necessity for change, this need to improve) regarding implicit and explicit bias, and I see it in education and healthcare and our politics, and I see it in the income and wealth gap, and I see it in childcare, and I (personally) see it in my workplace. I gave my notice to resign my position three weeks ago and there has been no effort to fill the coming gap; and granted, it may not be a large gap, I may be easily replaced, but if we cannot even respect such small-scale outgoing efforts and accomplishments when we have the opportunity for a little transition planning it is no surprise that we cannot see the bigger issues that our very survival insists that we address. For decades we have practiced NIMBY (not in my backyard) to maintain status-quo and it has apparently become so ingrained that we now insist our backyard has no need for change or improvement. And so, our backyards will continue to become smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller…