It’s the vision thing. In my favorite leadership book, The Leadership Challenge by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, the authors remind leaders that it is their job to imagine things for their organizations that are beyond the ordinary. That’s why people ask this kind of question. It is their attempt to understand, clarify, and get excited about their future. If they can’t get an answer from their leaders, they feel lost, adrift, and frightened.

I’ve sat in more leadership team meetings than I care to remember during which the leaders asserted how impossible it was for them to answer this question. Their excuses were many. “The things that are happening are confidential.” “Once we get things turned around, we’ll have time for this philosophy stuff.” “The competition is killing us; we may not have a future.” “We don’t have a clue.” These are the responses of leaders who are using their titles under false pretenses. Even with the constraints of confidentiality, can’t you say something? How will you turn things around if you don’t know what direction you’re facing? Why shouldn’t we engage our entire team in dialogue to help us understand and beat the competition? How can you not have a clue? Leaders have to talk about the future. All the time. At every opportunity.

What happens during your leadership team meetings? Maybe it’s time for you to discuss this question together. Whether you’re the team leader or a member, bring it up for conversation. If you lead from the middle of the organization, gather your peers and talk. Too often, everyone assumes that these issues are the responsibility of the organization’s real leader. Nothing is further from the truth. Real leaders exist at all levels of the organization, and the visions they have need to be part of the ongoing dialogue about the future.

After you have become known as a leader who thinks, talks, and cares about the future, start turning this question back to the people who ask it of you. Help them understand that they help the organization and themselves when they share what they know from their unique perspective.

It will not undermine your credibility as a leader if you talk about your vision for the future based on what you know today and revise your view when circumstances change—as long as you include the changing circumstances along with your revised vision for the future. It will enhance your credibility as a leader if you identify the unshakable values that will guide your own and the organization’s behavior, no matter what the future brings. It will focus and uplift your organization if you talk about things beyond the ordinary each time this question is asked.