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Five reasons why you need to become a visionary leader. I’m going to start with a little bit of a caveat about visionary leaders. Some people have a tendency towards being visionary leaders. Les McEwen who’s a leadership development and business expert says this; there are three types of leaders, Visionary, the Processor e.g that is the person who is good at strategy and then there’s the Doer, the person that just gets in and gets the job done. All of those types of leaders have a place. 

In fact, Les McEwen argues that you can’t take an organization anywhere beyond its inception unless you have those three types of leaders in your organization. So it’s important that you have strategists and you have doers. But today I want to talk about the value of being a visionary leader and how you can grow in this department if you don’t feel you are naturally inclined that way. Visionaries are an interesting group of leaders because visionaries see what is possible before anybody else sees it. 

There’s a famous story about Henry Ford where he was asked about why he built the model T-Ford which is the first production line car. He said, “If I had asked people what they needed, they would have said they wanted faster horses”. It took the visionary leader to realize that what people needed was not faster horses but a more economic motor car, so that’s why he developed the production line, car and Model T. The Model T-Ford spawned our whole car industry to what it is today.

Sometimes visionary leaders need to be able to see beyond where people are at currently. They are the people that can see into the future and see what’s coming down the path. They’re the ones that can make decisions that are going to help down the path rather than making decisions just for the now. 

Another great example of this is Steve Jobs. Many of the things that he brought to market through the Apple corporation were not his inventions. He didn’t invent a lot of the technology that he brought to market. But he was able to see what technology would become integral to the future of people’s use of computing and was able to implement particular aspects of that technology into his design and to see it’s future potential long before it came to be. He directed people in the direction that he thought they needed to go rather than just making more of what people already had.

 A visionary leader has the ability to really think ahead of everybody else. Now you may be someone who has a natural tendency towards this, that’s cool you’re already on your way. But for those of you that maybe are not necessarily inclined towards it, there are some things that you can do to help yourself become a more visionary leader and to be able to look towards the future. 

1. Develop An Abundance Mindset. 

An abundance mindset says there is always more where that came from. An abundance thinker never gets limited by what they see in front of them. They never get limited by the resources, technology or the skill set that are in front of them. They never see what’s in front of them and say, ah I don’t have enough, we can’t do it. An abundance thinker says there’s always more where that came from. So if I haven’t got the skills, tools or the resources to do what I want to do now then I’m going to go out and find it or I’m going to go and find somebody else that can help me find it or achieve it. 

An abundance thinker is always looking for the potential of what can be. You’ve got to train yourself to do that, especially if you have a tendency towards process thinking. If you are a process-driven leader or you’re a strategist then you tend to look at the finer details. Sometimes looking at the finer details can get you bogged down in what’s not possible, rather than looking at what is possible. Train yourself to be an abundance thinker even if what’s in front of you looks like it’s not enough.

2. Become a Possibility Thinker

The second point that I wanted to make is that you need to become a Possibility Thinker. Become the person that always says yes, I think we can do it, We just need to find the right way to do it. Don’t be the person that always leans towards the glass is half empty, No I don’t think we can do that or no that’s not possible. If you are always tending towards the negative end of the possibility spectrum, then what you are going to find is you are not going to be a visionary. You’re not going to be looking to the future, you’re not going to be leading people towards what is possible. 

What you’re going to do is you’re actually going to close yourself down, you’re going to close down the people that are around you. You’re going to find that you achieve far less because you’re not looking at what’s possible. You’re looking at what you perceive to be Impossible or not possible. Look for ways to get it done, look for the possibility of what could be and not at what couldn’t be. 

There’s a famous story which I’m probably not quoting right but it’s about Thomas Edison and the light bulb. When he was quizzed about all his many failures, I think he had about a thousand prototypes of the light bulb, he was asked about all his failures. He says “No they weren’t failures, I just found one thousand ways that I shouldn’t use to make a light bulb. Don’t get stuck always looking at the things that are not happening the way you expected or maybe you perceived, but actually look at the possibility of going forward. 

3. Be a Student of Culture and Trends

Number three is this, you need to be a student of culture and trends. You need to be a keen observer of what’s going on around you. The way you do that is to be an avid reader, be an avid consumer of cultural knowledge and understanding. Not because you necessarily want to do what culture is doing, but you want to see what trends are doing and where people are going. 

You will find that most large corporations that are trendsetters will usually have a division or a group that is devoted to measuring or assessing the trendsetters that are not on the radar of anyone else. In Coca-Cola, I remember seeing a documentary on their marketing division. They have a whole division that’s devoted to talking to young people about the latest trends and understanding what young people are doing. Very often teenagers set the trends of the future. 

Another way to look at it can be found in social media trends. Almost every social media platform that has been released over the last decade or so has started out with teenagers. Their parents then jumped on because they wanted to see what their teenagers were doing. As soon as the parents jumped on the teenagers left, they found another platform. Then once the parents were on social media all the businesses jumped on and tried to market to the parents. 

If you want to know what’s going on in society watch young people. 13-year-olds have a very good pulse on what’s going on. If you watch the trends of what teenagers are doing and what young people are doing, you can see trends and predict trends in society.

Also, predict trends in culture. When you see cultural movements or cultural conversations that are happening you’ve got to have a good understanding. Have your pulse on what’s going on, so that you as a leader can make decisions that are based on where people are heading rather than where people have been up till now. 

4. Be a Constant Learner

The other thing about being a good student of trends and culture is to be a learner. You’ve got to be a constant learner. You’ve got to be somebody who is constantly looking to grow their knowledge base, to grow their understanding. I am constantly consuming videos, ebooks, audiobooks. I’m constantly reading because I want to know more. I want to understand more, if I encounter something that I don’t understand or if I see a trend or a cultural conversation that’s happening and I don’t understand it then I make it my business to learn about it.

I make it my business to find out what’s going on so that I understand and can make sound decisions that factor in all the aspects of such trends. If you want to lead people in a particular direction, you need to know what you’re talking about. They’re looking for leaders who understand what’s going on. To do this you have to be a constant learner. Don’t rest on the knowledge that you have, but be continually looking for ways to grow and understand and increase your level of skill and knowledge. 

5. Have a Continual Growth Mentality.

Now here is my last point and that is to have a continual growth mentality. A continual growth mentality says that you never stop growing. I was listening to the radio one day and an arborist came on the radio, that’s the people that cut down trees and care for trees. He said that a tree is only ever in one of two states, it’s either growing or it’s dying. It doesn’t matter how old it is or how big it is. It is always growing. It’s always pushing out new shoots, new leaves and new branches. The only time it stops growing is when it gets sick or it reaches the end of its genetic life span, then it starts to die.

Don’t be a person that gets to the end of your potential and then just stops growing. You’ve always got to be looking for opportunities to grow. Life is an opportunity for continual growth. As Simon Sinek says, “You’ve got to take the attitude of continual improvement or continual enhancement”. If you look at video gamers there are two types, people that play video games to win and people that play to get better. Be the person that plays to get better, don’t be the person that plays just to win. 

So that’s five keys that will help you to become a more visionary, more future-focused leader. If that’s not particularly your strong suit then I hope this will help you make greater decisions and help you lead your teams and your organizations onto greater successes. 

Would you like to kick start your growth as a leader? Check out our free webcast LEAD Like a BOSS – The four keys to leading difficult people.

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