Leadership Vision Clarity in the Messy Middle: What Survives When Everything Changes
I’ve had to rebuild my vision three times in the last five years. Not because I lost clarity. Not because I got distracted. But because the vehicle I was driving to carry out my mission got totaled. Three times. During all of this I had to keep my focus on leadership vision clarity in the messy middle. Maintaining leadership vision clarity is crucial during challenging times, as it directly affects the ability to navigate through difficulties effectively. Leadership vision clarity ensures we remain steadfast despite setbacks in the pursuit of leadership vision clarity. Achieving and maintaining leadership vision clarity is essential for guiding others through uncertainty.
First, it was leaving 35 years of full-time pastoral ministry when we moved back to Iowa and there were no pastoral positions available. Then it was walking away from a management role when diabetes and neuropathy hit so hard I went from walking normally to needing a walker in ten months. Then it was shifting from premium coaching to giving everything away for free when disability income limits made transactions impossible but legacy work became essential.
Three completely different visions. Same mission.
And that’s what most seasoned leaders don’t understand about vision work in the messy middle. Your mission doesn’t change. Love God, serve people. That’s been my mission for 35 years and it hasn’t moved an inch. But vision? Vision is how you accomplish that mission in the season you’re actually living in.
When your season changes violently, your vision has to change with it. And if you don’t know the difference between mission and vision, you’ll either cling to a dead vision or abandon a living mission.
Let me show you what I’ve learned about keeping leadership vision clarity alive when everything else falls apart.
The Day My Vision Died (The First Time)
After 35 years of pastoral ministry, I knew who I was.
I was a preacher. A teacher. A shepherd. I led congregations, built ministries, navigated church politics, preached multiple services every weekend, and poured my life into people who needed spiritual direction.
That was my vision. My vehicle. The way I served God and loved people.
Then we moved back to Iowa. Home base. The place we’d always said we’d return to when the time was right. And when we got there, I couldn’t find a pastoral position anywhere. Not because I wasn’t qualified. Not because I’d burned bridges. Just because the landscape had shifted and the opportunities weren’t there.
So I did what most mid-career leaders do when their primary vehicle breaks down. I pivoted.
I took a management role. It wasn’t pastoral ministry, but it used the leadership and people skills I’d built over three decades. It was close enough. And for five to six years, I made it work.
But here’s what I had to learn the hard way. A pivot isn’t just a job change. It’s a vision translation. I wasn’t a pastor in a management role. I was a leader with a mission trying to figure out how to love God and serve people without a pulpit, without a congregation, without the structure I’d known my entire adult life.
That’s the first lesson of vision clarity in the messy middle. Your mission doesn’t change, but your methods will die on you multiple times.
When Your Body Takes Your Vision Away
January 2025 was when everything accelerated.
I’d ignored my diabetes for years. I knew better. I’d counseled people about self-care. But like most leaders, I prioritized everyone else’s needs and let my own health slide. And diabetes doesn’t wait for you to get around to it.
Neuropathy hit. Fast. I started falling. My legs stopped working the way they used to. Walking became difficult, then dangerous, then impossible without assistance. By November, I was on a walker full-time and on disability.
And just like that, my management vision died.
I couldn’t do the role anymore. I couldn’t lead a team on-site. I couldn’t move through a building managing operations. The vehicle I’d rebuilt after leaving pastoral ministry was now gone too.
So there I was. Mid-career. Decades of leadership experience. A mission that hadn’t changed. And zero viable vehicles to carry it out.
This is where most leaders give up on vision entirely. They say, “I guess this is just my new reality. I’ll adjust my expectations and coast.” But that’s not vision clarity. That’s vision surrender.
I had to ask a different question. Not “What can I still do?” but “How does my mission translate into this new reality?”
Love God. Serve people. That hadn’t changed. But the vision for how I’d do that? That had to be completely rebuilt again.
The Vision Translation Framework
Here’s what I figured out through all of this.
Most leaders confuse their mission with their methods. They think their vision IS their job title, their platform, their organizational structure. So when those things get stripped away, they think they’ve lost their purpose.
But mission is the constant. Vision is the variable.
Your mission is your core purpose. Mine is love God, serve people. Yours might be different, but if you’ve been leading for 15, 20, 30 years, you know what it is. It’s the thing that’s been driving you through every role, every season, every pivot.
Vision is how you accomplish that mission in your current context. It’s the strategy. The vehicle. The method. And when your context changes radically, your vision has to change with it.
Here’s the framework I use now:
Step One: Anchor to MissionWrite down your mission in one sentence. If it’s longer than ten words, it’s not your mission. It’s your vision pretending to be your mission. Your mission should be so core, so foundational, that it could survive any circumstance.
Step Two: Name What DiedBe honest about what vision vehicle just got totaled. For me, it was the pulpit. Then it was the management role. Then it was the premium coaching model. Don’t sugarcoat it. Don’t pretend the old vision can limp along. Name what’s dead so you can stop trying to resurrect it.
Step Three: Ask the Translation QuestionHow does my mission translate into my current reality? Not “How do I get back to what I was doing?” but “What does my mission look like now given my actual circumstances?”
For me, it meant asking: How do I serve leaders when I can’t meet with them in person, can’t charge premium prices, and can’t rely on physical presence? The answer became the free legacy model. Give away everything. Build frameworks. Teach at the 401 level. Serve the 0.1% leader who’s in their own messy middle.
Step Four: Build the New VehicleThis is where you create your new vision. You’re not starting over. You’re translating. You’re taking the same mission and building a new vehicle to carry it forward.
This isn’t about lowering your standards or shrinking your impact. It’s about designing a vision that matches your mission AND your reality.
What Actually Survives
Let me tell you what doesn’t survive the messy middle.
Your methods don’t survive. Your platform doesn’t survive. Your income model doesn’t survive. Your organizational structure doesn’t survive. Your reputation doesn’t survive. Your plans don’t survive.
Here’s what does survive: Your mission. Your values. Your core competencies. Your desire to make an impact.
That’s it. That’s the irreducible core.
Everything else is negotiable. And the sooner you make peace with that, the faster you can rebuild a vision that actually works instead of clinging to a vision that’s already dead.
I’ve learned this three times now. And I’ll probably learn it again. Because the messy middle isn’t one event. It’s a season. Sometimes it’s a decade. And if you’re going to lead through it, you have to get comfortable with vision translation.
You have to learn to let your methods die so your mission can live.
The Vision I’m Building Now
So here’s where I landed.
I can’t do premium coaching anymore. Disability income won’t support it. I can’t travel to conferences. I can’t meet clients in person for intensive sessions. I can’t do the things I built my last vision around.
But I can teach. I can write. I can build frameworks. I can give away 401-level coaching that would normally cost thousands. I can serve the 0.1% mid-career leader who’s navigating their own messy middle and needs someone who’s been there to say, “Here’s what actually works.”
That’s my vision now. Legacy over transactions. Impact over income. Teaching over selling.
Same mission. Love God, serve people. But a completely different vehicle.
And here’s what I’m learning. This vision might actually have more impact than any of the previous ones. Not because it’s better, but because it’s unencumbered. I’m not trying to monetize it. I’m not trying to scale it. I’m not trying to build an empire.
I’m just trying to serve leaders well with everything I’ve learned in 35 years of ministry, management, and messy middle navigation.
That’s vision clarity. Not having the perfect plan. But knowing your mission so deeply that you can build a new vision every time the old one dies.
How to Keep Vision Alive When Everything Is Chaos
You’re probably not on a walker. Your circumstances are different than mine. But if you’ve been leading for decades, you’ve had your own version of this.
The merger that didn’t work. The market shift that killed your business model. The health crisis that changed your capacity. The financial hit that reset your options. The team that fell apart. The strategy that failed.
You know what it feels like to watch a vision die. And you know the temptation to either cling to the corpse or give up entirely.
Here’s how you keep vision alive instead:
First: Get brutally honest about what’s actually dead.Stop trying to revive a vision that’s already gone. Grieve it if you need to. But don’t waste energy on a vehicle that’s totaled.
Second: Reconnect to your mission.What’s the core purpose that’s been driving you for the last 10, 20, 30 years? Strip away the methods and get back to the mission. That’s your anchor.
Third: Ask the translation question.How does my mission translate into my current reality? Not your ideal reality. Your actual reality. With all its constraints, limitations, and unexpected circumstances.
Fourth: Build a vision that fits.Design a new vehicle. It won’t look like the old one. It might be smaller, quieter, less prestigious. But if it carries your mission forward, it’s the right vision for right now.
Fifth: Give yourself permission to rebuild again.This probably won’t be your last vision translation. The messy middle is long. And circumstances change. So don’t build a vision you’re too attached to. Build one you can let go of when the next shift comes.
What the Messy Middle Teaches You About Vision
Here’s what I know now that I didn’t know 35 years ago.
Vision isn’t about having the perfect plan that lasts forever. Vision is about having the clarity to rebuild when everything falls apart.
Most young leaders think vision is about trajectory. Up and to the right. Growth, expansion, momentum. And sometimes it is.
But mid-career leaders know better. Vision in the messy middle is about translation. It’s about taking the same mission and finding a new way to carry it forward when the old way stops working.
That’s not failure. That’s wisdom.
And if you’ve been leading long enough, you’ve already done this. Maybe not three times like me. But you’ve done it. You’ve pivoted. You’ve adjusted. You’ve rebuilt.
The question isn’t whether you’ll have to do it again. The question is whether you’ll do it with clarity or confusion.
Leadership vision clarity in the messy middle means knowing the difference between what dies and what survives. It means letting go of methods so you can hold onto mission. It means building a vision that fits your actual life instead of the life you thought you’d be living by now.
That’s the work. And it’s hard. But it’s also the most honest leadership work you’ll ever do.
Your Next Move
If you’re in the messy middle right now, here’s what I want you to do.
Take two hours this week. Just two. And work through the Vision Translation Framework I gave you.
Anchor to mission. Name what died. Ask the translation question. Build the new vehicle.
Don’t wait for perfect circumstances. Don’t wait until you have more clarity. Start with what you know right now and build from there.
Your mission hasn’t changed. But your vision probably needs to. And the sooner you make peace with that, the sooner you can stop mourning what’s dead and start building what’s next.
That’s what vision clarity looks like in the messy middle. Not having all the answers. But having the courage to rebuild when the old answers stop working.
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Legacy over transactions. Always.