Northouse, Introduction to Leadership: Concepts and Practice, 4e
SAGE Publishing, 2018
Discussion Questions
Chapter 7: Creating a Vision
1. How do you define vision? What are examples of vision from your own life?
2. How important is vision in your current or intended career? How does (or would) it
impact your performance?
3. What are your visions for the future? Where do you want to be in five years? Ten?
4. How can a person develop vision?
5. Can group members be working toward different visions and goals and still be effective?
Why or why not?
6. What values do your, and your group members’, visions reflect? Can that lead to
conflict? How?
7. Besides “climbing a mountain”, what other metaphors and symbols can you think of for
9. Explaining and describing a vision to others is essential for accomplishing one’s goals.
Yet people are often suspicious of leaders who speak well and use words that are
uplifting and hopeful. Why?
10. Our textbook emphasizes creating a vision for social good. However, throughout history
there have been leaders who created visions for evil purposes. How does the visioning
11. The textbook states that “visions are about changes in values”. Do you agree with this?
Why or why not? Can you think of a situation where the new vision aligned with existing
values? How well did that work?
12. It is important that visions include a map. How detailed should the map be in order to be
effective? What factors should be considered in creating the map?