In the early phases of an organization, a company’s vision comes directly from its early leaders; it is very much their personal vision. To become great, however, a company must progress past excessive dependence on one or a few key individuals. The vision must become shared as a community, and become identified primarily with the organization, rather than with certain individuals running the organization. The vision must actually transcend the founders.

Vision Component 1: Core Values and Beliefs

Core values and beliefs are where vision begins. Core values and beliefs are like an ether that permeates an organization—its decisions, its policies, its actions— throughout all phases of its evolution. Some companies refer to this as their “guiding philosophy.”

Core values and beliefs form a system of fundamental motivating principles and tenets—precepts about what is important in both business and life, how business should be conducted, its view of humanity, its role in society, the way the world works, what is to be held inviolate, and so on. You can think of it as analogous to the “philosophy of life” that an individual might have. Core values and beliefs are analogous to a biological organism’s “genetic code”—they are in the background, but always present as a shaping force.

The core values and beliefs come from inside you. You, as a leader of the company, imprint your personal values and beliefs about life and business through your daily actions.

And therein lies the crucial aspect of core values and beliefs: they must be an absolutely authentic extension of the values and beliefs you hold in your own gut. You don’t “set” values. The proper question isn’t, “What values and beliefs should we have?” but rather “What values and beliefs do we actually hold in our gut?”

Ultimately, core values and beliefs get instilled by what you do, by specific, concrete actions, not by what you say.

There is another, equally critical, factor for success in companies: teams that act as communities, integrating interests and putting aside differences to be individually and collectively obsessed with what’s good for the company.

Leadership is not about you, it’s about service to something bigger: the company, the team. Bill believed that good leaders grow over time, that leadership accrues to them from their teams.

To care about people you have to care about people... These aren’t necessarily empty words; most companies and executives truly do care about their people. Perhaps just not the whole person.