The pause is a hugely important tool in the Exceptional Visionary Leader's Toolkit.
And It's even more powerful if you accompany it with Blinkers. Now, this is a phrase that Visionaries hate. And I wish I could come up with another word or phrase that doesn't put the heckles up right away, but here's what I'm talking about.
You're a passionate, Visionary leader. What's very important for your team is that you have a series of really, really clear what I call bullseye initiatives. The absolutely most important things that you and your team have to achieve over the next three to as far as 18 months short to medium term objectives, and build a high wall around them.
Why? Because I see so many otherwise exceptional, brilliant, Visionary leaders never really achieve on their core initiatives because they allow other serendipitous things. This is being part of that catalyst, just come in and shift focus. So you're in the middle of launching the new product and serendipitously you just see this piece of software that's nothing to do with the new product.
It just, it will revolutionize how your team works. Maybe it's some sort of a communication software or an AI enhanced database, whatever it may be. And suddenly it's what again, my mother called the bee's knees. It's, it's the thing de jour, and it just sucks the focus out of achieving on your core initiatives. You've got to decouple input and action.
What do I mean by that? Once you've moved to implementation on those bullseye initiatives, no more new input. Don't go in and smear it with new stuff just because you had a brilliant idea. Now, am I saying you never remember? We talked about flexibility.
I'm not saying you never change something if something isn't working. Of course you have to change it, but if you've got your three to five bullseye initiatives going, your focus is on getting them done. We're going to talk about more of that in the joy of completion in a moment or two. But one of the things that you've got to allow yourself to do is remove the luxury of looking around whether it's subconscious or not, for new fun things to put into those mixes, because that won't work.
One last pro tip and a word of warning. This really only works with established teams with good relationships, good communication skills, and maybe a little bit of self-deprecating humor. And it's this, give your team a safe word that they can use when they see you do this, when they see you introducing new thing upon new thing, upon new thing and preventing them get to the point of completion on something that's very important.
The reason is they see it way before you do. For Visionary leaders, it's a little bit like the goldfish in water. Coming up with something new is just so natural that it can be a little hard to self-diagnose. So try it. Give your team a safe word.
Tell them that you're not necessarily always going to act on it, but at least it'll give you a canary in the coal mine, a little early warning signal that you might be doing just this.