One of the core characteristics of the customer obsessed digital executive is purposeful leadership. This leadership is both purposeful and intentional.

The idea of visualization seems very powerful as a part of how leaders get great results. It is very hard to reach our goals if we can’t visualize them.

Equally important, we need to help others visualize it as well. Effective communication and stories will compel employees and customers to engage with our mission.

Here are the key ideas:

1. Create clear goals with strategies to achieve them. The goals should be very specific.
2. Visualize what it looks like to reach them.
3. Communicate with stories using the visualization.

Warren Bennis, one of the most respected authorities on leadership in the world, said: “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” On the surface, this sounds perfunctory. But when we examine this more deeply, several important implications arise. If leadership is the ability to translate vision into reality, what is the method to do this? One way, according to the latest research, is to use our brains to optimize our chances of success.

There is now incontrovertible evidence that imagining a movement will stimulate the movement areas in the brain. This technique has been used when helping people with stroke to begin moving and to help elite athletes optimize their pre-competition training. The recent example of the detailed visualization of Mikaela Shiffrin leading to a gold medal in the Olympic slalom is one such case in point. This evidence suggests that to reach your goals first write them down, and then determine different possible ways of achieving them. Then, close your eyes and imagine yourself following those paths. Imagination “warms up” the action brain and “jump starts” your brain. This technique can be especially helpful if you are procrastinating or stuck.

Source: To Reach Your Goals, Make a Mental Movie – Srini Pillay – Harvard Business Review.