How leaders create the future

There’s a billboard on the main freeway in Dubai that reads: “The future belongs to those who can imagine it, design it, and execute it.”

A similar sentiment was echoed by renowned business thinker and author, Peter Drucker, who said, “The only way to predict the future is to create it.”

This ability, of great leaders, to shape the future, begins with them being able to articulate their vision in words. These words paint a picture for others that catalyses action and orientates behaviours.

JFK says: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade“, and a new, shared vision is realised. Martin Luther King says: “I have a dream…“, and his dream becomes our vision too.

Having worked with dozens of school leaders around the world, I see, in the best of them, this same ability to help paint a picture of an exciting, brighter future. When a picture of the future is clear enough and inspiring enough, it can be wonderfully infectious. And then, it’s amazing how an idea, dream, or vision of the future can be willed into reality.