So let's dive in to Lesson One - What's a Visionary leader?
The first thing is obviously, as you've heard me say a number of times, and as you'll have picked up in taking our Quiz, it's one of four Leadership Styles: the Visionary, Operator, Processor, Synergist.
I'm not going to explain the other three Styles in detail in this course. We've got other courses about each one of them, but you are going to pick up the main thrust of how they each show up as we go along.
Secondly, what I don't mean by a Visionary leader is that they're necessarily sitting on a mountaintop having visions... well, maybe, but that's not part of the package. What I really mean is they're visual thinkers. They envision what they want to see happen. Visionary leaders are in essence creative. They like to find creative solutions to problems that they see.
They don't like just patching something up. They want to make it better. They want to improve it, and they want to make it contribute to something wider, as we'll see a little later.
Next, Visionaries are essentially internally driven. They're not reactive so much as proactive. It's those visions that they have, whether it's an aha moment sitting in a conference somewhere, or a brilliant new solution to a problem that's been bugging them, that arrives in the shower in the morning, or a book they read that gets them going.
They are internally driven to make things happen, to make a difference, to make a change. Most Visionary leaders are natural communicators. Now I want to make it clear. I don't mean that they're necessarily great orators, that you know, they hold people, you know, in their grasp, uh, from the podium.
That may well be the case, and many Visionary leaders do. But what I mean at core is they have a way of communicating that vision that they have, that thing that they've seen, in ways that make other people want to help them, want to join in. And we'll see how important that is as we move through our course today. Most Visionaries, not all, but most Visionaries are either outgoing or they can fake being outgoing enough to get other people excited.
Now, I know quite a few introvert Visionary leaders. And what they do is they learn how to emulate being outgoing to the extent that they know is necessary, because they want other people to help them realize their vision. They're risk takers. Now this is a sliding scale as all of these are. All of these are a sliding scale.
I'm not saying that everybody's a way up at a 10 on all of these. It's just their characteristics that they tend to show. But on the glass half empty, glass half full side of things, Visionaries are very much on the glass half full.
They're prepared to take risks, whether or not that's a controlled risk or at times an uncontrolled risk is sometimes context dependent. But they're by and large people who are prepared to take risks to see their vision enabled. At their core, Visionaries are starters. They love to start things. That's when their itch gets scratched.
That's when they feel most excited, is at the moment of realization when they have that vision of what could be. Now I am tempted to say it's all downhill after that. That would be a gross exaggeration. But it is true to say that for most Visionary leaders, the height of their enthusiasm is at the point of realizing, "Oh, we could..." They're essentially starters, and that's going to impact how they work with the other Styles, as we shall see.
Lesson