LDR 305 Week 3 Organizational Vision Example

Clean Cars Are Not a Vision: Writing and Communicating an Organizational Vision for a Growing Car Wash Company

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

LDR/305: Foundations of Leadership

Week 3 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Brightwater Express Car Wash, its leaders and its plans are composites written for a model paper.

Brightwater Express Car Wash, a composite express car wash company with 22 sites around Kansas City, plans to grow to 45 sites in four years, expanding into Wichita and Omaha. Earlier weeks examined its site managers' leadership and its regional managers' styles. Vice president of operations Rachel Okonkwo now raises a larger question. The company's vision statement, painted on every pay station, reads the cleanest cars in Kansas City. It no longer fits a company leaving Kansas City, and in interviews, crew members described it as a sales line rather than a reason to come to work. Founder and chief executive Greg Lindholm has agreed to revise it. This paper explains what makes a vision effective, critiques the current statement and proposes a new vision and communication plan.

Vision, Mission and Values

A vision describes the future an organization wants to create. A mission describes what it does today, for whom and how. Values describe the principles that guide behavior along the way. Brightwater's statement mixes a mission, washing cars, with a boast about quality, and it names no future beyond the present.

Vision and Follower Performance

Kirkpatrick and Locke (1996) tested three core components of charismatic leadership in a laboratory study: a vision, task cues about how to perform and a charismatic communication style. They found that the vision and task cues affected participants' performance and attitudes, while the charismatic style, such as eye contact and an animated voice, had little effect beyond them. The finding suggests that the content of a vision matters more than a leader's dramatic delivery, which is encouraging for leaders who are not natural orators.

Vision and Firm Growth

Baum et al. (1998) studied chief executives of small firms in the architectural woodwork industry over two years. Visions with attributes such as brevity, clarity, abstractness, challenge, future orientation, stability and the ability to inspire, and visions focused on growth, were associated with venture growth, both directly and through the way leaders communicated them. Communication through written statements and conversations helped carry the vision into the firm.

Distance and Detail

Berson et al. (2015) studied how leaders' psychological distance from followers shapes vision communication. Leaders who were more distant, such as senior executives, communicated more abstract visions, while leaders closer to followers set more concrete goals, and both fit followers' motivation in their own context. The finding has a practical implication: the chief executive should state a broad vision, but site managers should translate it into concrete goals for crews.

Critiquing the Current Statement

Measured against the attributes in Baum et al. (1998), the cleanest cars in Kansas City is brief and clear but not future-oriented, not challenging for a company that already rates highly on cleanliness and not inspiring for crew members who do not identify with the cars. It is also tied to one city at the moment of expansion. In staff interviews, no crew member could explain how the statement related to their job beyond keeping the tunnel clean.

A vision about clean cars asks employees to care about machines; a vision about people gives them a reason to care.

What Employees and Customers Value

Interviews and surveys revealed what matters to people at Brightwater. Crew members valued learning skills, being treated with respect and flexible schedules around school. Customers valued speed, friendly crews and the company's water recycling, which reuses most of the water in each wash. Several site managers spoke with pride about hiring teenagers who had never had a job and watching them grow.

A Proposed Vision

To be the first job young people are proud of and the neighborhood wash that cares for every car, every customer and every drop of water.

Why This Vision

The statement is brief and memorable. It describes a future the company can grow toward in any city. It is challenging, since being a first job young people are proud of requires training, scheduling and respect at every site. It reflects what employees and customers already value. And its three parts, young people, customers and water, can guide decisions.

Translating Vision Into Goals

Each level will turn the vision into concrete goals, as the construal research by Berson et al. (2015) recommends. The chief executive will tie the vision to the expansion plan, choosing sites where the company can recruit and train local young people and secure water recycling permits. Regional managers will set goals for training completion, crew retention and customer ratings. Site managers will set weekly goals with crews, such as teaching every new crew member the full tunnel process within two weeks.

Risks in Changing the Vision

Changing a familiar slogan carries risks. Some long-time site managers liked the old statement because it was simple and customer-facing. A new vision that mentions young people could also be read as a promise the company might not keep if expansion pressures cut training budgets. To manage these risks, the company will keep cleanliness as a standard in operations while the vision speaks to purpose, and it will publish training and promotion numbers so employees can judge whether leaders mean it.

Communicating the Vision

The vision will be introduced at an all-company gathering by Greg Lindholm, with stories from crew members and customers. Site managers will hold huddles explaining what the vision means at their site. The vision will appear in hiring materials, training and the customer app, alongside monthly reports on water saved and crew members promoted. Leaders will refer to it when explaining decisions, such as investing in a training center.

Testing the Vision Over Time

The company will measure whether crew members can explain the vision in their own words six months after launch, track crew retention and promotion rates and include a vision question in the annual employee survey.

Conclusion

Research shows that the content of a vision affects performance, that visions with certain qualities predict growth and that leaders at different levels should communicate vision at different levels of detail. Brightwater's current statement is a slogan about cars that does not fit its expansion or its people. A vision built on young people, customers and water stewardship, translated into concrete goals at every level, gives the growing company a direction its employees can share.

References

Baum, J. R., Locke, E. A., & Kirkpatrick, S. A. (1998). A longitudinal study of the relation of vision and vision communication to venture growth in entrepreneurial firms. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83(1), 43-54. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.83.1.43

Berson, Y., Halevy, N., Shamir, B., & Erez, M. (2015). Leading from different psychological distances: A construal-level perspective on vision communication, goal setting, and follower motivation. The Leadership Quarterly, 26(2), 143-155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2014.07.011

Kirkpatrick, S. A., & Locke, E. A. (1996). Direct and indirect effects of three core charismatic leadership components on performance and attitudes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81(1), 36-51. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.81.1.36