Leadership – Vision vs Pragmatism

An issue that often comes up on management training courses is how a leader can deal successfully with a conflict between their vision for their organization and what they know to be the reality of what is feasible when change is required in order to deliver that vision. This is often described as a conflict between vision and pragmatism.

One of a leader’s roles is to decide on the vision for their organisation and to decide upon the right things to do to achieve that vision. One of a leader’s challenges is to decide when a vision needs revisiting, to check if it is still appropriate, needs some fine-tuning or needs changing completely. This is particularly difficult if you are required to challenge some fundamental and long-held assumptions and organizational barriers to implementing change.

Organisations Resist Change

It can be challenging to force oneself to ask these questions; it can be even more difficult to encourage/cajole/force organizations to do so. Most organizations, particularly large ones, have a built-in resistance to change. In fact, most have well-constructed barriers that enable them to deflect, challenge or directly undermine change.

Case Study – Gordon Brown and Defence.

Let’s look at a current example. Last week, the UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, announced a significant increase in defence expenditure. Assuming that this is a genuine policy and not a sound bite for the forthcoming election, it raises some interesting questions about leadership and the assumptions upon which the announcement is based.

A throw back to Britain’s colonial past, her defence policy has been based for a long time on having a large, modern, high-tech military that can be deployed quickly, wherever it is needed around the world. Mr. Brown’s recent announcement announces a continuation of that policy. For keeping with the same policy it means either that he firmly believes that the cost, and the underlying philosophy are more important than making cutbacks in a time of economic difficulty or that it’s a knee-jerk reaction to try to give the impression that strong defence is a cornerstone of Labour policy. (I’m being lenient and dismissing the suggestion that it may be a move to hand the Conservatives a poisoned chalice should the Tories win the next election!)

Our current defence policy as described above is based on the belief that we should still be a world power. Indeed, there are very few countries who have a large, modern high-tech military that can be deployed anywhere at very short notice. What would be the alternative? The role of the military could be changed to one much closer to home, focusing on defending the country and its people from the threat of invasion and local terrorist attack.  This would of course need to be accompanied by a change in foreign policy as Britain would then cease to have a global role.

There would be nothing wrong with making such a change: many European countries have defence and foreign policies that are confined to their own region. It would free up a lot of money for education, health and the welfare state.

However, such changes require courageous leadership and a determination to overcome resistance from the armed forces, security services, the foreign office and quite probably from the USA and France, the only other nations with the capability, experience and well-resourced military to deploy worldwide. The change is unlikely to happen.

Sometimes there is a clash between what you want to achieve and what you can achieve. As Labour party leader, presumably Mr Brown embraces the party’s commitment to excellence in education, health and welfare. To achieve that means some serious reallocation of funds in the public purse, at a time when there is huge pressure because of our national debt. Much could be achieved to achieve his vision in those areas were we to even halve our current defence budget, which stands at approximately £35 billion a year.

But as Prime Minister he knows that such changes would require winning a public debate on the issue to then give him the confidence to overcome the organisational barriers  described above.

Conclusion

Whilst the case study is a high profile one, it illustrates some key points that apply to leaders everywhere. Leaders need to have a clear vision, courage in the face of resistance and a sense of when it is sensible to attempt change, and when it isn’t. As Don Quixote failed to learn, there are some windmills that are not worth tilting at!

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