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Vision statement

Future position of an organization

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors
1 min read
Source updated May 23, 2026
Image credit is listed at the end of this article.

A vision statement is a high-level, inspirational statement of an idealistic emotional future of a company or group. Vision describes the basic human emotion that a founder intends to be experienced by the people the organization interacts with.

Vision statements may fill the following functions for a company:

  • Serve as foundations for a broader strategic plan.
  • Motivate existing employees and attract potential employees by clearly categorizing the company's goals and attracting like-minded individuals.
  • Focus company efforts and facilitate the creation of core competencies by directing the company to only focus on strategic opportunities that advance the company's vision.
  • Help companies differentiate from competitors.

01Characteristics

A consensus does not exist on the characteristics of a "good" or "bad" vision statement. Commonly cited traits include:

  • concise: able to be easily remembered and repeated
  • clear: defines a prime goal
  • time horizon: defines a time horizon
  • future-oriented: describes where the company is going rather than the current state
  • stable: offers a long-term perspective and is unlikely to be impacted by market or technology changes
  • challenging: not something that can be easily met and discarded
  • abstract: general enough to encompass all of the organization's interests and strategic direction
  • inspiring: motivates employees and is something that employees view as desirable
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Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Vision statement”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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