You Don’t Always Need a Vision. You Do Need Honesty.
On uncertainty, self-awareness and the responsibility carried by anyone who assesses another person.
I was in my early forties. A restructuring at a large professional-services firm had left me facing an uncertain next chapter. I was interviewing at what was then a relatively new business school in India.
The founder-director asked one question: ‘What is your vision? What do you want to do?’
No answer came. The conversation did not go much further, and I left the room with a genuine sense of deflation.
What I did not understand then—and only recognised much later—is that vision, in its polished declarative form, can sometimes be a luxury of stability. When you are navigating financial uncertainty and professional flux, the honest answer may not resemble a five-year plan.
My real answer was simpler: I want to learn. I want to throw myself at whatever comes. I want to stay in motion.
What I now listen for
Years later, as someone who assesses CXO candidates, I regularly ask about longer-term aspirations. The same silence sometimes appears on the other side of the table.
I have learnt not to listen only for a grand vision. I listen for self-awareness and genuineness: whether someone knows themselves well enough to say that they respond to opportunity, take considered risks and show up fully even without a fixed destination.
That is not necessarily an absence of direction. It may be a particular kind of courage.
You do not always need a vision. You do need honesty—about who you are, how you work and what genuinely drives you.
The responsibility in the room
There is another part of this experience that feels important. Interviews can cause real harm, particularly to people in early or mid-career who are already in a vulnerable place.
When interviewers perform their own authority—when the room becomes more about the interviewer’s framework than about understanding the person in front of them—candidates can leave having quietly concluded something diminishing about themselves.
If you assess others, a useful question is: am I assessing this person against the genuine demands of the role, or against a version of leadership I have already decided is correct?
The strongest candidates are not always those with the clearest vision. Sometimes they are the ones honest enough to say they are still working it out—and courageous enough to keep moving.
Adapted from a reflection first shared on LinkedIn.