From Henry Ford to Steve Jobs, the vision espoused by the company founder captured the brains and hearts of the employees. The result was typically explained as they created an inspirational and magnetic culture attracting people to the vision. In its hey-day, people slept in Apple's parking lot just to get an interview for a job. However, Steve Jobs and Henry Ford were pikers compared to other visionaries.
For example, there was preacher Jones from San Francisco who persuaded 800 people to leave their homes in California and follow him to a distant country where he persuaded all 800 of them to commit suicide together. That must gave been a tough sell. Hitler persuaded people to kill millions of jews in a spirit of recapturing pure German heritage. Hitler claimed it was manifest destiny for Aryans. Yesterday, a man in Overland Park Kansas killed three people at a Jewish center. His blogs, which were released last evening, showed he had been successful in organizing groups of people to support, in dangerous ways, white supremacy. He had a history of forming groups to help him carry out his racist schemes.
My conclusion is that most any visionary, regardless of vision, can develop a following. We all wish to follow somebody and something bigger than ourselves. It is tribal. We want to belong. Visionaries are painters and all painting is liked, adored or purchased by somebody. The tribe may be big or small, but it can be a force for good or evil.
My point is that we must all question are leaders lest we follow them into an abyss. Just because they can paint a bit, does not mean they are going in a direction we should follow. If we follow them off the cliff like the classic Lemmings, we can not blame our leaders for our failure to make sure they know where they are going, so we know where we are going.
Vision can be a many splendored or splintered thing.
Webtalkwithbob@gmail.com
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