Try this exercise: explain in one sentence where your organisation is going and why it matters. Without looking at the strategic plan. Without numbers.
If what comes out is a target («grow twenty percent»), what didn't come out is a direction. Targets say how much; purpose says where to and what for. A team can run hard after a how much, but it only truly aligns behind a what for.
Purpose and vision is leading from a horizon, not only from urgency. It isn't having a slogan on the wall. It's that this week's decisions make sense in the light of a direction you've already communicated. It's that you yourself are the visible example of that commitment. The acid test is uncomfortable: a purpose that hasn't yet cost you a single decision is decoration.
What covers this competency is the operational short term: the calendar that eats the horizon. And underneath, sometimes, something less comfortable: a certain conservatism. Defining a direction means committing, and committing means you can be wrong. Managing the day is safer: there are always fires to justify not looking up.
The sign that it's missing is hard to read: you manage a great deal and drive very little. The company works, the numbers come in, and yet your good people start asking themselves what all of this is for. Real talent rarely stays for money alone: it needs meaning, direction and respect.
But you've had moments of vision. Remember when you saw something before everyone else and told it in a way that made people want to go. What did that moment have? You had probably given yourself room to think. And you spoke about what you believed, not only about what was due.
The small experiment: in your next team meeting, before reviewing the state of things, spend ten minutes on the what for. «What we're doing here matters because…» No slides. Watch the faces. The difference between an informed team and an oriented team is visible to the naked eye.
I know where we're going and why. If you can't say it, nobody on your team can. And if nobody can, you're not leading. You're administering.