Persistent challenges in the Nigerian educational system have made education delivery ineffective as students' performance levels on national examinations have remained low. Students' average performance has been below 40% on the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSSCE) for 7 consecutive years in the region of this research. Stakeholders blamed heads of schools and teachers, yet the Ministry of Education made significant decisions about schools' inputs. Leaders at the Ministry of Education may need to adopt a shared vision approach to addressing persistent educational challenges. There was no study available to indicate the understanding of educational leaders at this level concerning the shared vision concept. This generic inductive qualitative research explored the understanding of management committee members at a ministry of education about a shared vision and how it could address their persistent education problems. The conceptual framework of shared vision, systems thinking, and shared leadership helped to focus the study while an adapted Walker and Avant concept analysis framework guided data analysis. Interview data collected from 15 members of management were analyzed using themes from the literature. The results indicated that members had a substantial understanding of a shared vision's attributes but did not show the same level of understanding of some aspects of the antecedents and consequences of a shared vision. There were indications that a shared vision approach could have some positive effects on members' work. This research contributes to knowledge on educational leadership at the systems level, and may engender a planned change on educational leadership and management in the focus organization and the country. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]