Visionary Leadership

Are leaders born or made?

Think of some great visionaries.

Write down two or three great visionaries.

Share with your neighbor and share why you chose them.

What traits do these visionary leaders have in common?

A visionary leader is a person who has a clear idea of how the future should look.

A visionary leader sets out concrete steps to bring a vision to life, and then they lead a team of people in that direction.

Author, thought leader, researcher and Emotional Intelligence guru Daniel Goleman defined the term Visionary Leadership in his work on six types of leadership in 2002.

Visionary leadership was derived from the work of sociologist James Downton Jr, and scientist James MacGregor Burns on transformational leadership.

What is transactional leadership?

Transactional leadership plays to the needs of individuals using rewards and where necessary disincentives or punishments.

Transactional leadership accepts goals based on basic needs.

What is transformational leadership?

Transformational leadership goes beyond self-interest. It focuses on drawing people to the highest point of Maslow's hierarchy--self actualization.

To achieve this, visionary leaders must inspire their team with a compelling vision.

This vision is so compelling that it encourages people to stretch themselves as individuals,

to come together as a team and to work together for long-lasting changes.

Goleman says Visionary Leaders:

• Embrace & communicate inspirational, long-term goals that move their teams forward,

Goleman says Visionary Leaders:

• •Create empowered, collaborative and open cultures where team members can build their knowledge and abilities

Goleman says Visionary Leaders:

• •Employ and promote a shared-purpose that allows progress and development

In the past couple of years, we’ve all had front row seats to accelerating disruption. We’ve had to rethink business processes, redesign business models and adopt agile practices.ront row seats to accelerating disruption. We’ve had to rethink business processes, redesign business models and adopt agile practices.

Yet little attention has been paid to the cognitive and emotional load that change of this magnitude creates for the individuals involved.

What makes the burden especially onerous is the lack of clear answers.

The very nature of disruption means that even the best, most prescient leaders will be steering their company into, and through, a fog of uncertainty.

You aren’t alone if you feel threatened by this—everyone does, whether consciously or subconsciously.

Even seasoned leaders internalize the acute stress of such moments—so much so that their judgment and decision-making skills seem insufficient.

The result? Leaders fall back on old habits, which, unfortunately, are almost always out of sync with what the current context demands.

We have many of the skills needed to handle what’s being thrown at us. But when faced with continual complexity at unprecedented pace, our survival instincts kick in.

In a mental panic to regain control, we;

• fight, flee, or freeze: we act before thinking. “We’ve got to make some kind of decision, now!”.

In a mental panic to regain control, we;

• •analyze an issue to the point of paralysis

In a mental panic to regain control, we;

• or we abdicate responsibility by ignoring the problem or shunting it off to a committee, task force or others

Our brains seek stasis some type of footing on past ground or a quick answer.

At the very time our brains need visionary, empathetic, transformational creative leadership we fall into conservative, the way-we’ve-always-done-it, rigid habits.

Visionary leaders can’t steer their teams through constant change if they are relying on the safety of their own cruise control.

Visionary leaders:

• learn how to relax at the edge of uncertainity

Visionary leaders:

• learn how to relax at the edge of uncertainity

Visionary leaders:

• learn how to relax at the edge of uncertainity
• bserve and seek subtleties in their work, environment

Visionary leaders:

• Manage their emotions and the emotions of their tea
• observe and seek subtleties in their work, environment
• consider unconventional actions to those subtle clues

This goes against our very nature, our prehistoric brains that want to scream at change, the unknown, uncertainty and ambiguous 21st century.

Five personal practices that visionary leaders employ...

1. Pause to Move Faster

They slow down to speed up. They think before they act.

Pausing while remaining engaged in action
is a counterintuitive step that leaders can use to create space for clear judgment, original thinking, and speedy, purposeful action.

What do I need to do to pause to move faster?

2. Embrace your ignorance.

Letting go of your need to know means challenging your own identity as exceptionally competent.

Listening—and thinking—from a place of not knowing is a critical means of encouraging the discovery of original, unexpected, breakthrough ideas.

Hear not just the words and ideas of others, but the subtext of conversations. Try listening with your heart instead of your logic.

To get started, ask yourself some probing questions.

• Do I suspend judgment and listen for what is below the words, or do I listen for what I already know or believe?

To get started, ask yourself some probing questions.

• What would I have to let go of to truly listen?”

To get started, ask yourself some probing questions.

• What is the very worst that could happen?”

To get started, ask yourself some probing questions.

• Am I the leader I want to be?”

3. Radically reframe the questions.

Asking yourself challenging questions may help unblock your existing mental model.

Pose open-ended questions designed to surface multiple, and often hidden, perspectives.

Don’t settle for quick answers. Adopt an “And what else?” attitude to unearth viewpoints that had gone untapped for so long.

4. Set direction, not destination.

In our complex systems and in this complex era, solutions are rarely straightforward.

Instead of telling your team to move from point A to point B, join them in a journey toward a general direction.

Point them in certain values-based directions and give them the tools to succeed, knowing that the outcome would depend much more on their talents than your dictates.

Setting a direction that is rooted in purpose and meaning can inspire positive action and invite others to stretch out of their comfort zone.

So how do you do this? Share

• What really matters for you? What do you want to discover?
• What do you want to discover? What do you want to create through your leadership?
• What do you want to create through your leadership?
• What do you want to be remembered for?

5. Test your solutions—and yourself.

Quick, cheap failures can avert major, costly disasters.

Thinking of yourself as a living laboratory helps make the task of leading an agile, ever-shifting company exciting instead of terrifying.

Which of these do I need to work on the most?

• Pause to move faster.
• Embrace my ignorance
• Radically reframe the questions.
• Set direction, not destination.
• Test my solutions—and myself.

In times of complexity and high stress, we find our sense of our own competence (and sense of self!) continually challenged,

We have two choices:

• Try to reduce discomfort by falling back on trusted habits
• Embrace the complexity and use it to learn and grow

With conscious, disciplined practice, you stand a better chance of rising above the harried din of day-to-day specifics, leading your team effectively, and surveying your company and its competitive landscape with creative foresight.