Purposefulness

Read a great article in Entrepreneur Magazine today titled, Building the 21st Century Leader. Among qualities that are essential for a 21st century leader is Purposefulness. The article states:

Experts are split on whether having a strong vision is a good thing. "Leadership is about going somewhere," Blanchard says. "You need a clear vision that's about who you are, your picture of the future, where you're going." But Linsky counters, "Vision is as much a constraint as a resource. In my obersvation, CEO's get invested in their vision, and then they don't see contrary data." What's better these days, Linsky says, is for leaders to have a strong sense of purpose they can express to their workers--a compelling reason for everyone at the company to come to work.

This really spoke to me. I'm not as strong of a vision caster as I thought I was, but I do know the purpose behind doing what we're doing at The Point. It's to build the kingdom. I so much want my life to count for something bigger than my small, short, adventure-filled years on this planet.

And here's the thing about vision. It's a picture of a prefered future. It's really my picture of how I think the future should be. It's not a bad thing to have a picture of the future, especially when it gives you something to shoot for.

But vision is limited in that I can only see with my own limited perspective. I come to the vision with the unique background, experiences, passions, gifts and strengths that God gave me...but those are unique to me and so my vision can be short-sighted. Having purposefulness is grander than a vision. Being a part of building the kingdom is a way for my small, tiny vision to be a part of something much bigger.

Maybe this makes no sense... just something to think about.