Through the Founder's Lens: When People Lose Their Bearings

We've Been Asking the Wrong Question

One of the questions I hear leaders ask most often is, "How do I motivate my team?"

It's a reasonable question, and one that has fuelled countless books, podcasts and conference presentations. Yet, the more time I've spent observing people, teams and organisations, the more I've found myself wondering whether we've been trying to solve the wrong problem. When people appear disengaged, we often assume they've lost motivation. I'm no longer convinced that's what's happening.

More often, I think people haven't lost their motivation. They've lost their orientation.

When that happens, the questions running through their minds are rarely, "How can I work harder?" They're asking something much more fundamental.

Has something changed? What are we trying to achieve now? Where does this fit? How does my work contribute?

Those aren't questions about motivation. They're questions about orientation.

Direction Isn't the Same as Orientation

Leadership literature frequently describes vision as the ability to paint a compelling picture of the future. To inspire people with possibility and unite everyone behind a common purpose. Whilst I don't disagree with the importance of vision, I've often felt that this definition only tells part of the story. It focuses heavily on the destination but says very little about everything that happens between where we are today and where we're ultimately trying to go.

The reality is that leadership isn't static, and neither is business. Markets shift. Customer expectations evolve. Legislation changes. Priorities move. People leave. New opportunities emerge that nobody anticipated six months earlier. Very little unfolds exactly as it was planned.

Perhaps that's why I've never been entirely comfortable describing vision as simply "having direction." Direction implies a straight line. It suggests that once the destination is established, the path simply unfolds in front of us. In reality, leadership is less about following a predetermined route and more about continually making sense of an environment that refuses to stand still.

The destination may remain the same, but the path rarely does. Direction defines where you're heading. Orientation helps people continually adjust their course as the environment changes.

Why Uncertainty Is So Exhausting

In my experience, this is where many leaders unintentionally lose people. Organisations are often very good at updating strategy. They're far less effective at helping people understand what those changes actually mean. A new initiative is announced, a  restructure is introduced, technology changes or a process evolves. Somewhere between the announcement and the implementation, orientation is lost.

People begin filling the gaps themselves. They speculate. They interpret silence and, from that, make assumptions. Not because they don't care, but because human beings naturally seek certainty. When we don't understand where we are, it's incredibly difficult to decide where to invest our energy.

It’s little wonder uncertainty feels so exhausting. The mental effort isn't simply in doing the work. It's in constantly trying to understand the environment around us. The more uncertain people feel, the more energy they spend trying to make sense of what's happening rather than contributing to what comes next.

People don't resist change, they resist losing their bearings.

Rethinking Vision

I've come to see vision differently. It's not simply the ability to communicate an inspiring future. It's the ability to continually help people orient themselves within an evolving environment.

Helping people understand where they are, where they're going, what's changed, what hasn't, and what today's adjustments mean in the context of tomorrow's destination.

That process isn't linear. It requires continual pivoting, recalibration and reorientation.

What's interesting is that none of those actions require abandoning the destination. They simply change the path taken to reach it.

That isn't inconsistency. It's intelligent leadership.

I think we sometimes confuse consistency with rigidity. We celebrate leaders who never change course, as though certainty itself is a measure of good leadership. The most effective leaders I've observed aren't the ones who never adjust direction. They're the ones who continually help people understand what has changed, why it has changed, what it means for them, and how everyone moves forward together.

A Different Definition of Vision

At Cultiv8 Leadership, Vision is one of the eight branches of our leadership framework. For a long time, I described it as creating shared direction. I still believe that's an important part, but over time I've come to realise it's only part of the story.

Vision is about helping people continually orient themselves within an evolving environment, reducing unnecessary uncertainty by helping people understand where they are, where they're trying to go, and what needs to change along the way.

Leadership isn't about predicting every twist and turn that lies ahead. It's about ensuring that when the landscape inevitably changes, people don't lose sight of where they're going or why they started the journey in the first place.

Maybe we've been looking for motivation in the wrong place.

People don't lose motivation first. They lose their bearings.

Warmest,

KL