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I can’t believe how timely this post is for me today.

We’ve been trying to spread the word about a new social app which helps anyone who works at a desk get healthier.

With all of the physical education cutbacks in schools this is especially important. Without PE kids are not only not getting enough exercise but they are having a harder time learning. They just need the physical activity.

We’ve had success with teachers using our app (http://www.breakpal.com) in their classroom. They simply project the exercises up on the overhead projector.

A teacher in Texas who teaches a special ed class has especially seen great results with this. The kids are much more focused if they get in exercise during their studies.

We also have a few test cases starting in classrooms in the Bay Area. The teachers are very excited about it and feel it can really help their students not only get in better physical shape (As you know childhood obesity is rampant) but also to help them learn by keeping them more focuses.

Right now we are a finalist in First Lady Michelle Obama’s “apps for healthy kids” contest. If we win, the first lady will help us spread our app to classrooms across the country. We can literally helps millions of children and people who work at desks.

Unfortunately we are a very small business. Just me and my wife. We bootstrapped the entire project and built the app without outside funding.

We are competing against huge national corporations and unfortunately they are using their marketing power to garner votes for their apps and are leaving us in the dust. Some of them have PR firms working for them to get votes.

So I’ve decided to do something drastic. I’m going to give out a premium version to anyone who votes for our app. They just have to contact me and tell me they voted and I’ll give them a premium account.

What do you think? Is this a good strategy? Or is it just impossible to compete against the big guys?

Consider this analogy: Suppose I said to you that I considered all problems or decisions to be a challenge, even the decision of what to have for lunch, even decisions I make instinctively without full awareness of having decided anything. I think you would rightly say that I had divested the word challenge of any meaning because we normally use this word to differentiate really stretching problems or decisions from easy ones. If we use the word challenge to apply to all problems and decisions, it becomes redundant, it doesn’t add anything or differentiate one thing from another. I think this is a good analogy because serious, real challenges and easy decisions fall along a continuum just as do visions and ordinary, everyday ideas.

I think this is a general problem with the way we use language – that a good idea is often stretched to cover so many things that it becomes all things to all people and then virtually meaningless.

I think we can only say in general that leadership is an influence process. HOW people are influenced is situational. Sometimes a vision is required. Other times, example or a rather mundane suggestion can have a big effect. It partly depends on the receptivity of the audience. If I were to make a minor technical suggestion to a group of complete opportunists, I wouldn’t have to use much influence at all, let alone offer a vision.

Another point: building on Kouzes and Posner’s notion that leadership entails a journey, I would say that a vision is helpful for a journey because there is a destination and a timeframe – like Kennedy’s vision of putting a man on the moon by the end of the sixties. However, I think some leadership is an instant impact, as in a crisis, where no journey or destination is involved. If there is no aspirational destination, then a vision can’t be required. This, for me is what happens in leading by example. Often the impact is immediate. You’re not striving to lead anyone on a journey.

> People respond better to stories than to concepts; whenever possible express your vision as a story.
Beautiful insight and so true. Specific works better than generic and personable makes it connect.

Also, I think a front-line employee may have a preferred way of working which simply makes the job easier and which others notice and follow. I wouldn’t call this a vision. The word “vision” is obviously closely related to “visionary” and I think it helps to remember this because the latter means promoting a very grand direction, like Kennedy advocating putting a man on the moon by the end of the sixties. By comparison, a CEO advocating improving profits by 10% would hardly be described as visionary.

One of the points I maybe should have made in my Ideal Leader article, but which I made elsewhere is that we need to distinguish between input an output. The only necessary condition for leadership to occur is an output factor – that people follow. The means or input is always situational rather than necessary. Sometimes a vision is appropriate. Other times a simple concrete, everyday example works.

But perhaps we are closer on this than would at first appear. What I have said elsewhere on the subject of vision is that it need not be a grand thing. It can be small and quite simple. As you say, a worker doing their job with dedication and attentiveness can be a leader.

I would say this employee is demonstrating their vision by example rather than rhetoric, but they nevertheless have a vision. They become a leader when others choose to follow their example.

Someone in this situation may not be seeking a leadership role but a reluctant leader is still a leader.

I agree with you that leadership need not be on a grand scale. Perhaps I could have made that more clear in the post. But vision can be exhibited by anyone and therefore anyone can be a leader. That’s the point I was trying to make.

Thanks again for taking the time to comment.