The main responsibility of leaders is to influence people to follow your vision to success. If you have had any success as a leader you learned to share your vision with your actions as well as your words.  Some leaders stop right here; they believe that “Show and Tell” is all they have to do.  Some leaders go one step farther and think as long as people “Look and Hear” I know they are paying attention and success will follow.

Bill Cosby once said, “Every closed eye is not sleeping, and every open eye is not seeing.”

“Showing and telling isn’t enough; looking and hearing isn’t enough either.  What leaders need for success is seeing and listening which brings understanding and action.”

Here are three roadblocks to seeing and listening that you can overcome: 

1 – Your team members are not ready to accept your vision: Just like you prepare the ground to accept the seed, you must prepare your team to accept your vision.  Similarly, once the seed is planted, you water the ground to encourage the plant to take root; you must also reinforce your vision.

“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.” – Robertson Davies

There is a saying among presenters that goes like this: “Tell them what you are going to tell them, Tell them, Tell them what you told them.” These three steps are the keys to success to ensure your message is heard and understood.

Tell them what you are going to tell them: In this step you are preparing the audience to comprehend your message.  Your goal is to make your message as understandable as possible.  Tell the audience what they should look for in your presentation by outlining the points you are going to make.

Tell them: This is the step where you plant the seed.  Following the points you outlined in the first step, you add stories, jokes, and quotes that support your premise.

Tell them what you told them: In this final wrap up, you are reinforcing your points to take root by giving a call to action to use what they heard today to make a difference.

2 – You are not at the level that your team members need In his autobiography, Will Rogers said, “The fellow that can only see a week ahead is always the popular fellow, for he is looking with the crowd.  But the one that can see years ahead, he has a telescope but he can’t make anybody believe he has it.”

By definition, great leaders look from the top of the mountain, always searching for the future success of the team. From the top of the mountain you see far and wide but without great detail.  It is only from the ground that the detail becomes clear. If you want the attention to be turned from you and to the vision, you have to come down from the mountain.

“What you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.” – C.S. Lewis

My advice to visionary leaders is: “Don’t just shout your vision from the top floor, live it on the office floor.”

3 – You have not managed expectations When you ask people to follow you, what do you think they expect to happen?  Great leaders are great because they have a history of being great.  They have demonstrated time and again that following them leads to success to everyone on the team.

Without a history of success to draw upon, your team will set its expectations on the history they know – the past. You have to create success in small ways before you are allowed to ask for dedication in big ways.  There is no better way to remove doubt or fear than through the observation of success.

“People see and hear actions and words that fulfill their expectations.” – Denis G. McLaughlin

There are three age old steps you should follow to build small successes and set the right expectations:

1 – Do it for them – Go ahead, jump in the water first and show them it’s ok for swimming.

2 – Do it with them – The first time you skydive it’s in tandem, strapped to an expert.

3 – Watch them do it – So you can applaud and cheer.

Remember leaders, show and tell doesn’t guarantee success; only understanding and action can do that.