Leaders Create Tension

In this article, I'll use a well known leadership analogy to convey a point about aspirational brand positioning.

How Leaders Create Tension

Picture your organization as a group of people standing together, holding one end of a bungee cord. While the leader stands beside them, holding the other end of the same bungee cord.

As a leader, when you communicate an ambitious vision for the future, or set stretch goals for your organization, you're effectively walking out ahead of the group until there's tension on the bungee cord.

And what do people do when they feel tension? They strive to release it.

They will step toward you in an effort to reduce that tension; by working to make your vision and your stretch goals a reality.

But... it’s a fine line.

If you pull too far ahead, you'll create too much tension on the cord, and the cord might snap.

In that situation, your goals are too aggressive. People lose belief in what you’re doing, become overworked, demotivated, and may choose to leave the organization.

However... when you create just the right amount of tension – you can pull your team forward to the promised land.

So... how does one create the right amount of tension?

There are plenty of tools one can use create this tension, including the most obvious: goal setting and strategic planning.

But I want to share one mechanism that trumps them all.

I call it Aspirational Positioning.

It's the simple idea that you should dress for the clients you want, not the clients you have.

That you should position your brand - not around what you are today - but around what you aim to be tomorrow.

That your brand positioning should be inherently visionary.

Because by doing so, you're effectively stepping out ahead of the pack; ahead of what your agency is today, to plant a new flag in the ground.

And as soon as you plant that new flag, you light a fire under your entire agency to make it real. To live out that destiny.

"Now that we've proclaimed we are this, we must make it so."

And when the time comes where you've fully stepped into that aspirational position...

The tension on the cord will be released, and it will be time to step forward again to create new tension.

Internal goal setting and strategic planning are paramount to the success of any agency... but when you announce your visionary positioning to the external world, the immediate pressure to make it real is... well, real.

It's tangible. It's accountable. 

It creates a visible gap that needs to be closed. And It creates tension that needs to be released.

Leaders create tension.

Your people will work to release that tension.

So I would encourage to consider how you can create just the right amount of tension this year.