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The Work of Leaders:

HOW VISION, ALIGNMENT, AND EXECUTION

WILL CHANGE THE WAY YOU LEAD BY JULIE K. STRAW

Learning to be a leader is like learning to be a great athlete, musician, or artist. It’s a capability
that develops over time, through trial and error, hard work, and practice. Leadership is learned by
doing, not simply by taking notes in a classroom. –Stanford Graduate School of Business

Are you a leader? If so, when did you become a leader? It is • Building Alignment: getting to the point where everyone
probably hard to pinpoint a specifc date or time when you in the group understands and is committed to the direction
identifed yourself as a leader. Learning to lead takes time, • Championing Execution: ensuring that the conditions are
practice, and persistence. Even the best leaders continue to present for the imagined future to be turned into a reality.
read books and articles on leadership, discuss leadership best
practices with other leaders, and further their leadership journey All three responsibilities are part of a dynamic, fuid process.
by overcoming unforeseen obstacles. While there is a loose order implied in the VAE model, the actual
work of leaders is not strictly sequential. Although it makes
But the selection of leadership books, articles, and resources is sense to craf a vision before aligning around it and executing on
massive. People who have spent a lifetime leading or studying it, leaders are continually revisiting and reshaping their visions
leadership are willing to share their wisdom with us and much of of the future.
it is insightful, helpful, and even brilliant. Te problem, however,
is organizing and making sense out of all this information. In our research, we identifed best practices, or specifc behaviors
that efective leaders perform in each step of the VAE model. As
I am employed by a company that is invested in learning. Te you think about your leadership journey, you will probably fnd
company ensures not only access to information, but that the that some of these behaviors are second nature to you. You are
information can be understood and utilized in work situations also likely to discover that you have a few leadership behaviors
by our customers. that are much more difcult.
About six years ago, we set out to develop a leadership training
program with the goal of making the wealth of leadership insight FIGURE 1. THE VAE MODEL
accessible to all kinds of people in all kinds of organizations.
We read numerous works by authors including Warren Bennis,
Seth Godin, Liz Wiseman, Peter Senge, Frances Hesselbein, Jim
Collins, Jim Kouzes, and Barry Posner. We also tapped into the
opinions and data collected from as many as 3,500 people a day
who responded to one of our online assessments; we engaged
subject matter experts from over 150 organizations to test our
leadership model and support training resources. Our goal
was to create a framework of leadership that was accessible and
actionable for everyone—not just the CEOs or the Ph.D.s. We
wanted to take the mystery out of leadership and spell out a
leader’s responsibilities as clearly as possible.
Adapted from The work of leaders: How vision, alignment, and execution will
Te result is a leadership model of Vision, Alignment, and change the way you lead, by J. Straw, M. Scullard, S. Kukkonen, and B. Davis, 2013.
Execution, or what we call VAE. It is pretty simple—in our view, Copyright 2013 by Wiley.
leaders have three fundamental responsibilities: Tey craf a Wherever you are on your leadership journey, having the VAE
vision, they build alignment around that vision, and they bring framework will keep you on course, ensuring that you are
the vision to life by championing execution of the vision.
continuously improving your work as a leader, and giving the
• Crafting a Vision: imagining an improved future state that people who follow you the confdence and the commitment to
the group will make a reality through its work join you on your journey.

6 LEADERSHIP Vol. 20.1 Spring/Summer 2014

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