How to Be the Visionary Leader Everyone Wants to Work For

Visionary leadership is difficult because there are no guarantees.  It’s risky.  It takes courage. It will require you to step out of your comfort zone, but you can do it.  It’s a learnable skill, and in this post, I'll help you take the next steps toward being the visionary leader that people want to follow. 

The first step to becoming a visionary leader is to lead yourself. After all, if you don't know where you want to go as a person, how are you going to lead others in an organization?

Leading yourself starts with becoming aware of your own inner needs, strengths, and weaknesses. It's extremely important that you understand how others experience you and your leadership style so that you can make adjustments where they're needed. 

For much more on how to be the leader people want to work for (and with!) including how to shape culture, connectivity, clarity, and courage at your company, watch my LinkedIn Learning course, Leading with Vision. 

1. Observe your own leadership behavior and seek feedback

Leaders who can see themselves in the eyes of their colleagues and teams are more likely to be high-performing leaders. As a leadership coach, I'm asking you to take the next six months to consciously observe your own leadership behavior, potentially keeping a journal of what went well and what didn't. 

Take time to evaluate your effectiveness, others' reactions, and the results you obtain. Ask yourself in each situation, if I could do that again, how would I do it? 

Other ways to understand how you are coming across is to get feedback through 360-degree surveys, by reading exit interview data, and by choosing some key stakeholders that you check in with regularly, who will help you with honest feedback about your leadership. 

When you have these meetings it's important to have a few specific questions. And when they give you the feedback you say this and only this, thank you for the feedback. It's okay to ask clarifying questions, but anything else will seem defensive and it will hinder your ability to get good feedback going forward. 

This practice is very helpful as you become conscious of your leadership and its impact. Visionary leadership means that you are out front, forging ahead into new territory so it is especially important that you lead well because if you don't, you may turn around and realize that no one is following. 

2. Try the life wheel exercise to go further into self-awareness

I want us to go further into your self-awareness. We're going to do what's called a life wheel. In the life wheel exercise, I want you to be very honest with yourself about where you are in each area.

Remember, the goal is to better understand yourself so that you can bring yourself as a whole person to the leadership role. When something's not in sync personally, it's reflected in your work. 

My co-author, Simon Vetter, and I did this exercise ourselves as we were building the Leading With Vision workshop. After we completed it, Simon told me that he was hesitant to share what was low in his life because it made him feel vulnerable, but he courageously told me. I didn't feel judgemental, I just wanted to help him. Then I told him that I didn't want to share mine either because of the secret professional goals I had in my heart. I felt would be judged because I'm a woman. But following suit, I shared with him and he also immediately started trying to help me. 

I share that story because being honest with yourself on your life wheel and then asking for help to get where you want to go takes courage. So don't hold back, let's see where you are. 

Take a look at the life wheel. Within each section draw a line from point to point of what you would rate yourself from one to 10. For example, if you think your career is at an eight right now, then in the career section you would draw a line from eight to eight. Do this for all sections of the wheel. 

How did you do? Are you surprised at your own answers? Many people are because they don't take the time to really think about all of this. 

Now, what are you going to do about it? Here are a few questions to ask yourself: 

• In what area of your life do you want to be more courageous?
• What does a desirable positive future state look like? 
• Describe the ideal future state. Don't be shy. This is a great time to write down the vision for your life. How do you want your life wheel to look three years from now? And be as specific as you can.

For example, if your family life is a four and you want it to be an eight three years from now, what will change? Will you have family dinners three nights a week, travel with your spouse, talk to your children every day in person or by phone? This is your time as the potter on the potter's wheel and your life is the pottery. Shape it until it looks like you want it to.  

Leading yourself is just the very first step in becoming a leader. For much more on how to be the leader people want to work for (and with!) including how to shape culture, connectivity, clarity, and courage at your company, watch my LinkedIn Learning course, Leading with Vision.