Why Being A Visionary Leader Isn’t The Best Idea

 "If the player doesn’t belong to the c-suite seat of a Silicon Valley tech start-up, I don’t even want to consider him a leader."

Reports in SAGE and Journal of Management have collected data from over 136 teams from two anonymous organizations, stating that the management literature is yet to understand the full potential of visionary leadership. If theoretical frameworks are rigidly implemented in a company pertaining to only the vision of the CEOs, then the managers may not strategically align with it, which in turn diminishes team commitment to that very strategy. The popular opinion of following a rigid top to down approach is a major letdown when it comes to fulfilling goals by the entire team.

After all, it’s not a one-man army anymore. Social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger confirm how the bias in inclusion and exclusion of people in forming major management decisions derives from an internal illusion in people of low ability and from an external misperception in people of high ability.

Additionally, the pressure of trying to live up to the ‘heroic leader’ image, and of having everyone expecting you to know what they would do in any situation without any prior preparation can be pressurizing for the successors of the post. The very same happened initially after the demise of the iconic god-father of Apple, Steve Jobs when the company was handed over to Tim Cook.

While framing company frameworks, both the top-tier and the middle and lower tiers should be kept in mind for the correct implementation of well-balanced leadership, which is often not the case in generic management models. It is time to bring about the change at the grass root level itself. In order to bring out the positive potential of the entire workforce, regular investment ought to be there for having discussions about any game changing decisions in the company with the CEOs and the middle management. The bigger picture of strategic success can only be seen when the point of views of all the experienced folks is incorporated with a clear mind.

One such approach can be “Generative Leadership”, proposed by Gervase Bushe, a two-time winner of the Douglas McGregor Award. This leadership style identifies the issue or problem that needs to be addressed in a company and frames it in a mannerism that motivates the variety of stakeholders who are part of the problem to engage in coming up with new ideas. This is inclusive of our aforementioned group of top-level and lower-level employees.

Research model proposed by Bilkent University’s Nüfer Yasin Ate? and team

 Another can be SWOT analysis, that is formulated to identify Irrational organization strengths (S) and weaknesses (W) and external environmental opportunities (O) and threats (T) Based this, managers at the different levels of the organization selects the corporate business and functional level strategies to achieve the desired mission and goals.

It is well known that the values of an organization’s culture are very hard to change instantly, the older and the bigger the organization is. It is a natural tendency for the management to protect what has been their policy for years. As it happens to be the case of the reputed automaker company, Ford, who reportedly recorded a loss of $13.3 billion in 2006, after which William Ford III, its CEO for the last five years, decided to step down. Over the years, Ford had developed a corporate culture based on empire-building, in which top managers only emulated them the age-old solutions to a given problem in the market. Alan Mullaly, the new CEO further found out how norms of secrecy being followed in each level of management, merely emphasized their ranks but didn’t do the main job, that was to protect the company’s overall interest of attaining their joint goal. Thereby a turnaround of Ford’s fortune happened only when every manager shared their decisions and thoughts about any fresh report and findings in the company, breaking down the self-protective culture and initiating a control mechanism in productive outputs of the organization.

As an integrated solution in the sea of business structures being implemented by startups and corporates alike, the aforementioned growth-centric models win the hearts of every level of management. Subsequently, if the mentors understand the team vision, they can help their team members know the depths of the decisions taken and further withdraw their insights as well for the diversity of opinions. It shall be a win-win situation as everyone would be whole-heartedly ready to commit to the strategy for the betterment of their entire company goals.