According to Jan Carlzon, the transformational leader of SAS Airlines, a leader must encourage and facilitate for mulation of an organizational vision in which as many stakeholders as possible have participated. The leader must create
> an environment in which employees can accept and execute their responsibilities with confidence and finesse. He must communicate with his employees, imparting the company's vision and listening to what they need to make that vision a reality. To succeed ... he must be a visionary, a strategist, an informer, a teacher, and an inspirer.
My concept of a vision is a description of a state that is considered to be significantly more desirable than the current state. It is a state that cannot be approached without a fundamental change of direction, a change of the status quo. It takes courage to lead such a change, and it requires instilling courage in others. Doing this involves more than persuasion; it requires the ability to inspire. Unlike persuasion, inspiration evokes a willingness to make sacrifices in the pursuit of long-run objectives or ideals. Therefore, visions that induce others to pursue them must be inspiring—the product of a creative act, of design. Inspiring visions are works of art, formulated by artists. Leadership requires the ability to implement pursuit of the vision. Inspiration without implementation is provocation, not leadership. Implementation without inspiration is management or administration, not leadership. Therefore, leaders must be both creative—in order to inspire—and courageous—in order to induce implementation. An inspiring, courage-evoking vision requires a mobilizing idea—an idea that need not appear to be realizable. Philosopher José Ortéga y Gasset wrote:
> [M]an has been able to grow enthusiastic over his vision of . . . unconvincing enterprises. He had put himself to work for the sake of an idea, seeking by magnificent exertions to arrive at the incredible. And in the end, he has arrived there.
Visions may consist of either positive or negative images. Positive images incorporate something that we do not have but want, for example, law and order, a clean, healthy environment, and peace. Negative images incorporate some thing that we have but do not want, for example, crime, poverty, and disease. Negative images are much easier to formulate and to mobilize people around. However, action against negative images often results in outcomes that are less desirable than the original problem. For example, when the United States tried to get rid of alcoholism by prohibition, it got rid of neither alcoholism nor alcohol, and got organized crime. We try to get rid of crime by incarcerating criminals, despite the fact that those who have been released from prison have a higher probability of committing another, more serious crime than the one that put them in prison.