How do you match feedback with your vision?

Imagine your are the captain of a large boat. You are far from shore, and you are trying to find your way, in the dark of night, to get your boat and your people to your destination. You are using all the instruments at your disposal and yet your are blind and deaf to everything that your team or anyone else tells you. That is exactly what turning your back on feedback is like. Feedback from all agents involved is key to achieve your goal and realise your vision. Never underestimate it.

I agree with the statement in regards to a leaders developing his or her leadership However, it is a bit misleading in terms of the focus of this thread, in my opinion. Feedback matters for activity regarding attaining Vision because the organization operates as a system. True, eadership focuses, penultimately, upon developing people to foster increased ability to form and maintain relationships. However, the ultimate ambition of leadership vis a vis Vision attainment is to develop the entire system - to include its contextual external envionment and org climate - to form relationships that work towards Vision attainment. Accordingly, leadership has to work beyond Self and Other development to development of the entire system.

I find this blurb a bit troubling. I believe it is a mistake to conflate feedback and Vision for crafting and delivering communications. In my opinion, Vision and feedback communications sit in unique domains in a Venn diagram. Conflation will result in both confusion and diluting/diminishing messaging. That is not to say there is no overlap nor no interaction. Rather, that a leader should be clear in his or her mind if he or she is communicating Vision or communicating feedback. Vision sets a target; feedback provides steerage. A quibble: A Vision should belong to the group - NOT the leader. Key work of leadership is to create such ownership. Accordingly, feedback should be an ambient function of organization-as-system.

There is a saying: "Be flexible; not limp" While I agree that collaboration is the best way to use feedback to keep activity aligned to Vision; I think it important to bear in mind that part of the mandate of leadership is to provide strength via stability in the midst of chaos. For context - Margaret Wheatley defines chaos in her seminal book "Leadership and the New Science" as "the absence of pattern". (A blank sheet of paper comes close to reflecting pure chaos ) People find chaos disconcerting because reference points that provide stability disappear. it is a kind of behavioral snow blindness. A key role of a leader is to emplace and energize "strange attractors" - things that generate pattern formation and thereby reduce chaos.

Vision is not a Constant It's alive when it changes, transforms with time From my experience of city planning, the recipe of all the Top cities has been re-inventing their vision When I was working in London in 2009 they were working on Vision 2050 of London So first thing is to acknowledge that there will be change and be ready to INVITE FEEDBACK rather than pushing it. Cities and Corporations both are microcosms of diverse layers and stakeholders. Feedback makes the vision future-ready and classic like the city of London.