You can surely name some great visionary leaders – maybe world famous or even better if it’s someone you’ve worked with.
They’ve all had to get rid of one thing to be inspirational.
Something you might not have thrown off yet.
Selfishness.
They may still have ego, or ambition, or disagreeableness, or even drive to make themselves wealthy.
In its pure form, selfishness is simply the inability to think about anything bigger than yourself.
When you think more about what you want to achieve than about yourself, you can start to be a visionary leader.
If you’ve worked for a selfish leader you’ll know how it feels.
You may not have recognized it as selfishness, just poor leadership.
Take the confuser – who keeps changing direction, doesn’t stick to a plan.
So busy thinking about themselves that they don’t see the end result or care about it until it arrives. They’re not confused by sudden changes, only their team is. They don’t even see the impact on their team.
Like a person stumbling in the dark walking in circles, with a team dragged along behind them.
Is that you?
Or the attention seeker – whose first priority is honing their image. They don’t focus on results because results aren’t their driving motivator. These are also the leaders who panic when things go wrong. Again not because of the result but because of the impact on their reputation.
Is that you?
If your vision is your own status or position, don’t expect your team to be inspired by it.
You can’t be visionary without seeing what others see as well.
Seeing how other people can benefit from your objectives helps those people understand the objective and engage with it. It’s not all about the you..
The simple act of thinking about what others want – unselfishness – lets you create a vision that others might follow.
It’s no coincidence that successful visionaries have a place for others in their vision.
You head for what you’re thinking about and your team is more likely to follow you if they’re thinking about the same thing.
They know if you’re unselfish or not.
“…If your vision is your own status or position, don’t expect your team to be inspired by it…”
Do you have a clear vision?
How does your team engage with it?
Is your vision about what your team does, or just about you?
Do you frame your objectives through your teams eyes?
Do you get positive reinforcement from your boss? How about from your team?
Do you see people adopting that vision to their own work? Making it theirs?
If they’re not aligned does it matter to you?
Do you see your position and income as an outcome of your achievement or an achievement in itself?
How often do you get negative feedback from more senior leaders about progress or direction?
When you do, does the vision change, or do you stick with it?
Does your team know that you’re committed?
Do they know you’ll back them if they commit?
What would you do if you were stopped from achieving your vision?
Would you change your vision to keep your position?
Are you unselfish?
.
.
“I might be wrong, but at least I’ve thought about it…”