Are You a Visionary?

What is a visionary?

Visionaries are the people who have big ideas and astounding ways to move their organization forward quickly. Visionaries create new products, start new lines, run unheard-of risks, and shoot for the stars. They will keep discovering new ways to make the organization better. Nine times out of ten, when I am working with a company that runs on Traction, the Visionary is a 7 or above on the Quick Start™. These leaders run with their ideas into unknown territories and thrive on the uncertainty they create.

Does this mean all leaders are visionaries?

Absolutely not. Leaders come in all shapes, sizes, and titles. In fact, a leader who is a visionary has their own challenges to overcome.

What are the challenges of being a visionary?

From my experience in working with companies that run on Traction, these are the common pain points that visionaries experience in leadership:

  • Their team doesn't get on board with the new ideas.  Furthermore, the team has understanding what is a new idea (where action is needed) - and what ideas will fizzle within 30 seconds.

  • Other people hear the idea and believe they have just been given marching orders to make that idea come into reality.

  • The uncertainty of the new idea leaves the team in a state of chaos.

  • The team does not move forward at the same pace.

How does the Kolbe Assessment Index help visionaries?

Kolbe Wisdom™ helps visionaries understand their teams. More specifically, the Kolbe A(™) index helps leaders identify the instincts of their teams, aiding in understanding of how employees approach leadership decisions/actions. Here are a few tangible ways visionaries can use the Kolbe Wisdom™ to better lead their teams.

Build a stronger plan of action

The ways in which you - and your employees - gather and share information is unique. By taking the Kolbe Index™, you’ll have a better assessment of who needs various amount of detail and leverage the talent to building a strong plan.

Who is the partner needed to execute that plan more effectively

Many visionaries have ideas imprinted on their minds and they can live within a limited amount of formal arrangement of those ideas. However, many professionals are not wired this way and need to build a specific design for how a plan is executed. For those of who you ‘speak’ EOS, this is the difference between the Visionary and the Integrator.  This partnership is crucial to bring the Visionary’s ideas to fruition.

Innovate as fast (or slow) as you need to

If you’re a visionary you’ve likely had to pivot ideas as you’ve launched them. This happens for many different reasons including having new ideas and further understanding markets. One of the ways that the Kolbe Index™ can help visionaries pivot more effectively is by understanding how their teams handle risk and uncertainty. Opportunity is equally as important how you process that opportunity. Because of this, how you structure your team to handle fast or slow growth - or how you maneuver the pace of growth with your current team - can be optimized even further.

To close, I want to ensure that I make note that a visionary's talent to innovate is crucial to the organization. The Kolbe A(™)Index provides insight to help visionaries present their big ideas to team members. With this added understanding, visionaries can help the entire team to get on-board with the changes, growth, and other elements of running an exciting organization.

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