As Napoleon once said, a picture is worth a thousand words. This isn’t just a trite cliché. Visual thinking is an invaluable skill, if not a leadership art.

In his book Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership (Basic Books, 1996), Howard Gardner makes the point that visionary leaders rally people around a compelling message by calling up mental images. Creating vivid pictures connects people in a very forceful way, touches hearts and minds, connects the right brain with the left, adds clarity to the path, and provides meaningful navigation that helps chart the way forward.

Take the case of how the city of Hollywood regained its long-lost glory.

Kerry Morrison was the underdog candidate in the late 1990s for the executive directorship of the Hollywood Business Improvement District, a sorely needed urban-renewal effort devoted to reversing the nearly half-century decline of the landmark community. The board had all but decided on another candidate.

Then Kerry walked into the room and proceeded to paint a vivid and brutally realistic picture of just how bad Hollywood appeared to outsiders.

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