You must give birth to your images.
They are the future waiting to be born.
Fear not the strangeness that you feel.
The future must enter you long before it
happens. Just wait for the birth, for the hour of new clarity.
(Ranier Maria Rilke)

The real work of leaders—the single most important thing a leader does—is create and hold a dream, a vision of what the world, or some part of it, will be in the future. Once this picture is developed and articulated, leaders enroll others by matching personal visions of success with the enterprise vision or dream to create common aspiration.

Leaders share that dream daily with people so they can help make it happen by recognizing how accomplishing their personal vision supports the enterprise dream.Leaders believe in the people who are working to make it happen. Dreams give you purpose, something to aspire to. They are the outlet for your creative mind. They allow you to see what can be, without any limitations, and provide the desire to see the dream become reality for both the individual and the organization.

Otto Scharmer of the Presencing Institute beautifully described the power of dreams in his book, Theory U. Dreams have the power to take hold of us, to compel us forward at all levels—consciously, subconsciously, and unconsciously. Once we have enrolled in a dream, it becomes something that we must do; in fact, we can’t not do it. Without the capacity to suspend the voices of judgment, fear and cynicism, we would not find what Scharmer called the “place of most potential.” We discipline ourselves to
suspend, to change the habits of the past, so that we can
enter a “new place of inquiry and wonder.”

An edge to this description of dreams that must be surfaced is that in order to change, in order to have and hold the dream, we must willingly let go of our old selves in order to give birth to the new. We must surrender to the future as it comes towards us.

Author's Bio: 

Raymond D. Jorgensen, Ph.D. – Director of the Jorgensen Learning Center
Ray spent thirty years in America’s private and public schools as a teacher, coach, department head, collegiate faculty member and school administrator. Today he provides leadership development consultative services to a variety of public and private organizations and coaches the internal JLC leader consultants.

During his three decades of public service, Ray was called upon by various communities to present seminars on both the technical and personal sides of leadership, management and learning. These forays into public speaking defined Ray’s work with various businesses and organizations and ultimately led him to his current position as Director of the Jorgensen Learning Center. Ray has worked with public and private school systems, city and county governments, hospitals, banks, military, physicians’ offices, and a variety of private businesses as a keynote speaker, facilitator, and seminar-workshop leader. Ray’s professional consulting is defining programs as systemic efforts to develop the leadership capabilities needed for any organization to thrive.

Dena Hurst, Ph.D. is a practicing philosopher whose passion is to help individuals and organizations realize their full creative potential. Her approach emphasizes conversation theory, styles and techniques as a means of building leadership capacity in individuals and organizations. Dena utilizes the concept of Conversational Leadership to work with individuals and organizations to create an environment of openness, trust, respect, and accountability, to improve communication.

Dena holds a bachelor's degree in Economics and a doctorate in Philosophy. She has worked for the past 13 years for a university outreach institute in the roles of project manager, project leader, research director, financial officer, and chief operations officer. Her varied duties allowed her to work with government and university leaders at all levels, local and state elected officials, gubernatorial and legislative commissions, and professional associations.

Dena also founded a not-for-profit, EHC, Inc., to foster conversation among scholars around the globe. She has coordinated 3 successful dialogue sessions in California, and Czech Republic. She also volunteers for the Florida Association for Volunteer Action in the Caribbean and and has taught performance management and leadership skills to groups in St. Kitts/Nevis.
Learn more at www.GOJLC.com