Take a second and look at the picture above.  What do you see?

This is an official image from the Rorschach test also known as the ink blot test.   Participants view the ink blots, and then are asked to share what they see and how they came to those conclusions.

If you stop and think about it, being a leader is a lot like taking the ink blot test.  Your senses are being overloaded with confusing and murky information.  Then, you are supposed to gaze into everything that is going on and formulate a crystal clear vision along with rationale for why you see things the way you do.  Your vision and your ability to communicate this vision are critical to the success of the team you are leading.

Back to the ink blots.  When you looked at the image, you probably only looked for a few short seconds, picked out the first thing you saw, and then settled on that.  This is if you even looked at the image at all.  If you would look at the image longer you could see other things.  The more you practice, the faster you are able to see the patterns.  I started by seeing wolves and a butterfly.  As I gazed longer I could see an angel, a glider, two women standing back to back, and other things.

The same goes for leadership vision.  How often do we create a vision and direction based on a very short time thinking and analyzing the big messy picture?  Worse yet, how often do we just proceed not knowing where we are really going?  Are you spending enough time looking at the bigger picture and finding the patterns that will enable us to have success and help customers?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry