There is a quiet assumption running through modern leadership practice: every team needs a vision. Not a purpose. Not a mission. A vision. A picture of a future that is meant to inspire, energise, and guide behaviour.

So leaders gather their teams into meeting rooms or virtual spaces and begin the familiar exercise. They ask people to imagine a better tomorrow. They search for words that feel hopeful, ambitious, and forward-looking. The result is often a carefully worded paragraph that sounds meaningful and feels optimistic.

And then, slowly, it disappears. It is not quoted in meetings. It does not guide difficult decisions. It is rarely used to resolve tension or clarify priorities. Over time, it becomes part of the organisation’s wallpaper. Present, but unseen. The vision does not fail. It simply becomes irrelevant.

Why this myth feels right

The idea that every team needs a vision sounds both sensible and generous. It suggests that people are not just resources but human beings who want to belong to something meaningful. It promises direction in complexity and hope in uncertainty. It carries the language of inspiration rather than instruction.

Leadership literature has reinforced this for decades. We are told that vision creates alignment, motivation, and resilience. Stories of charismatic founders and transformational leaders are held up as proof. From this, a quiet rule has emerged: if you want a committed team, you must give them a vision.

This rule has travelled far beyond the contexts in which it makes sense. It has drifted from long-term change initiatives into operational teams, support functions, project groups, and short-lived delivery units. Vision has become a standard item on leadership checklists, something that must exist regardless of what the team actually does.

The problem is not that vision can be powerful. It is that it has been universalised.

What once described a particular kind of leadership in particular kinds of work has slowly turned into a blanket expectation. Teams are asked to imagine distant futures even when their work is immediate, bounded, and procedural. They are encouraged to search for meaning in places where clarity and reliability would serve them better.

In trying to honour people’s need for purpose, leaders often end up creating something artificial. The vision is written because it is expected, not because it is needed. People comply with the exercise, but not with the idea. The language is accepted politely and then quietly ignored.

The myth persists because it feels humane. It feels like care. But in many teams it does not deepen meaning. It dilutes it.

What gets lost when vision is forced

When vision is treated as mandatory rather than meaningful, something subtle begins to shift in the life of a team. The language becomes elevated, but the work becomes narrower. People learn to speak about the future in broad, hopeful terms while quietly lowering their expectations of what the team can actually influence.

Energy moves away from the present. Instead of paying attention to the small, daily choices that shape trust, quality, and reliability, the team is encouraged to look beyond its real sphere of control. Vision becomes a place to put hope rather than a way to improve practice.

This has emotional consequences. When people are repeatedly asked to commit to a future they cannot shape, they begin to protect themselves. They offer polite agreement without real attachment. Over time, this creates a thin layer of cynicism. Not loud resistance, but quiet distance.

The team still does its work. Targets are met. Meetings are held. But the language of vision no longer carries weight. It becomes ceremonial. Something that belongs to presentations rather than conversations. The team learns, slowly, that inspirational words are optional, while real constraints are not.

In trying to offer meaning, leaders may inadvertently remove it. Vision becomes something that is spoken about rather than lived. The result is not greater commitment, but a subtle erosion of trust in leadership language itself.

The cost of this erosion is not dramatic, but it is deep. People stop listening carefully when leaders speak about the future. They assume it will pass. Over time, this weakens the emotional contract between leaders and teams. The language of leadership loses its credibility.

What began as an attempt to inspire becomes a quiet form of disengagement.

What teams actually need instead

Teams do not need a vision by default. They need orientation. They need boundaries. They need to know what matters when pressure, politics, or fatigue arrive. These needs are quieter than vision, but far more reliable.

Two elements do most of this work:

Purpose: what we will not trade away

Purpose defines the moral boundary of a team. It answers a simple but demanding question: What must not be sacrificed, even when it would be easier, faster, or more convenient to do so?

This is what protects a team’s integrity. It clarifies who must never be disadvantaged by the team’s success and what lines will not be crossed in pursuit of results. Purpose gives people a way to say no with legitimacy. It anchors behaviour when rules are not enough.

Mission: what we must reliably deliver

Mission defines the team’s practical responsibility. It answers the question: What would break if we stopped doing our work well?

It clarifies what the team is truly accountable for, what outcomes it must reliably produce, and what problem it exists to solve. Mission brings focus. It prevents diffusion. It gives people a clear sense of contribution rather than a distant aspiration.

Together, purpose and mission provide what most teams are actually searching for when they are asked to create a vision. They offer meaning that is close enough to guide daily work and strong enough to hold under pressure.

They do not promise a better future. They stabilise the present in a way that makes better futures possible.

When vision truly matters

There are teams for whom purpose and mission are not enough. These are teams whose work is not only to deliver, but to become. They are navigating change, uncertainty, or reinvention. Their identity is still forming. Their future cannot be described only in terms of outputs. In these contexts, vision becomes essential.

Vision gives people a shared horizon. It answers a different question: If we kept honouring our purpose and delivering our mission well, what would become possible? It provides emotional energy for long journeys. It helps people tolerate ambiguity. It invites them to imagine themselves growing into something that does not yet exist.

Vision matters when a team must:

  • adapt to ongoing change
  • carry uncertainty for long periods
  • create rather than simply execute
  • evolve its identity, not just its processes

Here, vision is not theatre. It is fuel. But even here, vision must remain close to lived experience. It should describe what “better” would feel like to work inside, not only what the organisation hopes to become. When vision stays human and near, it strengthens commitment rather than diluting it.

How to decide what your team actually needs

Rather than asking whether every team has a vision, a quieter and more useful set of questions can guide the choice.

First, ask whether this team is being asked to become something new, or simply to deliver something known. Some teams exist to evolve. Their identity is still forming. Their work requires them to grow into new ways of thinking, deciding, and relating. Others exist to provide stability, reliability, and craft. Their value lies in doing known work well. Vision matters in the first case. In the second, clarity matters more.

Next, notice where meaning currently comes from. In some teams, meaning is found in contribution, reliability, and doing good work for others. People feel proud of what they deliver. In other teams, effort feels disconnected from any larger story. Work begins to feel like motion without direction. Vision becomes useful when people no longer feel connected to the value of what they do.

Finally, consider what would be lost if the language of vision quietly disappeared. If nothing would change, if decisions would remain the same and energy would not diminish, then vision has become ceremonial. But if orientation, coherence, or commitment would weaken, then vision may be doing real work.

These questions invite leaders to design meaning with care rather than by habit. They replace automatic aspiration with deliberate choice. They allow each team to receive what it actually needs, rather than what leadership culture assumes it should have.

The quieter form of leadership

There is a quieter form of leadership that begins to appear when vision is no longer treated as mandatory. It does not rely on inspirational language. It does not ask people to imagine futures they cannot shape. It pays attention to the small decisions that define trust, reliability, and dignity in daily work.

This form of leadership focuses less on what sounds meaningful and more on what actually creates meaning. It protects clear boundaries. It honours real contribution. It gives people language for saying no, for repairing trust, and for knowing what they are truly responsible for.

It replaces performance with presence. In doing so, it restores credibility to leadership language. When leaders stop using vision as ceremony, their words begin to carry weight again. People listen differently. Commitments feel real. Expectations feel fair.

This is not smaller leadership. It is more precise leadership. It does not promise a better future. It creates the conditions in which better futures can grow.

Not every team needs a vision. Every team needs leadership that knows the difference.

Reflective questions for the leader

  • Where might you be offering aspiration when your team actually needs clarity, boundaries, or better ways of working?

  • If the language of vision quietly disappeared from your team, what would truly change in how you decide, prioritise, and relate to one another?

  • Is your team being asked to become something new, or to deliver something known, and how well are you leading in a way that fits that reality?

Do you have any tips or advice for working with visions?

What has worked for you?

Do you have any recommended resources to explore?

Thanks for reading!