How One Visionary Leader Got Her Sparkle Back

Last month’s blog post covered situational leadership and its importance. I distinguished four types — visionary, coaching, delegating, and directing.

This month we’ll dive deep into visionary leadership.

Let me start by introducing you to my client Heidi.

Heidi has been with the same company for 35 years. She started by answering phones. Over time, she became the Chief Operating/HR officer. A couple of years ago, her boss had told her he was starting to plan for retirement and approached her. At that time, Heidi told him there was no way she wanted to take over. 

Heidi came to my recent Master Your Mind Retreat because she wanted her sparkle back (her words, not mine). She said she felt stuck and didn’t know why. She was thinking about what she wanted after her own retirement but had a pit of fear in her stomach because she couldn’t see the future clearly.

Enter Day One of the Retreat.

On the first day, I always have my people invent their vision for the world. Not just business, not just you, but the world. The point is to have a  vision that is bigger than whatever is happening between your ears. A vision that propels you out of bed each morning and becomes your north star for every interaction. Ultimately it is the legacy you want to leave behind.

Now, let’s pause here for a moment to distinguish between vision and mission. 

There is a lot of debate about the difference between these two words.

Let me make it simple for you. 

Your vision is how you want to see the world. Your mission is your slice of the pie. 

My vision is a world of people at home with themselves. My mission (my slice of that pie) is to empower executive women in STEM to stop whittling away at themselves because they are trying to fit in. I want each and every woman to lead with confidence by honoring themselves and owning their visionary leadership.

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled programming…

What Heidi created with some brilliant coaching from yours truly (ahem) is that her vision for the world is simply a world filled with happy people. When Heidi got that vision, she got tears in her eyes and asked me, “Is it that simple?” And I said, “Yes.” 

Heidi looked at me with a big grin.

But crafting your vision and mission is just the start of honoring yourself and owning your visionary leadership. 

Later that day, participants worked on identifying and disrupting a core way they sabotage themselves through guided meditation, journaling, and coaching.

Heidi was returned to a memory of being in grade school. She was six and not feeling well. She told the teacher, and the teacher sluffed her off. Heidi sat back down to do her worksheet and then ended up throwing up all over her paper. In Heidi’s memory, her teacher yelled at her.  

Heidi was so embarrassed in that moment that her six-year-old brain made up a story that people in charge were mean. She never wanted to be in charge, which is why she said no to her boss.

Like the rest of us, when we have an unwanted emotion (embarrassment, shame, etc.), our brains figure out a way to avoid that same experience in the future and keep us safe.

Until this fateful day in January at the retreat.

As soon as we broke for lunch, Heidi set up a meeting with a co-worker who also was interested in taking over as CEO. They met for three hours that Friday and realized they needed each other to succeed—they each had skills that were required to move the company forward. They came up with a plan that would make them Co-CEOS. 

On Monday morning, Heidi walked into her boss’s office wearing sparkly tennis shoes and told him about the plan to co-lead the company. Her boss looked at her with a glint in his eye and a smirk on his lips and said:  “You got your sparkle back.” 

“I sure did,” she replied. 

Now Heidi has a vision for the future she’s excited about.   

Being a visionary leader is about making their people feel moved by the future they see. 

Being a visionary leader is not about telling people what to do. It's not about directing traffic. It's not about saying, “Hey, here's the goal.” The key to being a visionary leader is the leader has a clear sense of where they want to go. They have a vision. I know this seems obvious, but it’s not always. 

In Heidi’s case, she needed to intentionally create her vision for the world and unpack why she couldn’t see herself leading the company and was resistant to the very idea. Once she discovered both, Heidi could see herself “being in charge.” 

Visionary leaders inspire their team, people, community, and family (because a person can be a leader in their own home) with what they see for the world around them. 

Let's think about the word ‘inspiration’ for a second. 

The word ‘inspiration’ comes from the French word inspirer and basically means breathing life into something. Heidi's new vision for how she would lead the company required her to get the buy-in from people around her, the co-CEO and her boss being the two main stakeholders.

When a visionary leader breathes life into their vision, they make their people feel moved by the future that they see—whether it is Nike’s “Just Do It.”; Dupont’s “Better Living Through Chemistry” or; or “1 billion served“ (which was McDonald's); or it’s “a world where everybody is at home with themselves” (that’s mine).

Visionary leaders inspire the people around them to be a part of making the vision a reality. 

Heidi inspired her boss to see the future of the company the way she (and her soon-to-be Co-CEO) saw it.

Anyone can become a visionary leader if they take the time to develop their vision. 

Here’s the thing. Not everybody has the natural strength to do this visionary work. For instance, if we think about CliftonStrengths, certain types of strengths like ‘futuristic’ and ‘ideation’ give people the natural propensity to think about the future or see where they want to go. These people can do this very clearly. 

Then there are other people who you ask where they want to be in three years, and they say, “I don't know.” They simply don't have a vision. Thinking back to Heidi, she wasn’t sure why she was stuck or what she wanted. It was part of the reason she came to the retreat. 

So, while some could argue that being a visionary leader either comes naturally or not, you either have it, or you don’t—that’s not my take. You can learn how to create a vision. We simply need to spend some time thinking about our legacy and how we want to impact the world just like Heidi did. (Having an amazing coach helps, too, of course.)

If you feel like you're not a visionary or simply that it doesn’t come as naturally as other things, this is your cue to take some time. The problem is we never take the time to do that. But we should. We must. 

Being an inspiring leader is essential to keeping your team engaged. When your team knows your vision and how they play a part, they are more invested. It’s also a great tool for those days when they’re feeling in a rut, not remembering the point, if they matter, or whether what they’re doing is working. You can remind them of the ‘why’ and how they help advance the vision.

So, if you don’t have a vision, take time to develop one. (If you just don’t know where to start, join me for my next retreat in Denver!)

If you have a vision, share it with your team; otherwise, they won't follow you very long. 

And don’t forget, when inspiring others, you must have some glitter, fairy dust, and sparkles along the way. I’ll let you define what that means for you. 

—

Interested in learning how you can apply the various styles to your teams? Join me on Tuesday, March 21st, from 4–5 pm EST for my new monthly series, "The Empower Hour." Each month, I’ll tackle a different leadership topic, and two lucky ducks will have the chance to receive live coaching. We’ll focus on “Visionary Leadership in March.” Bring a current leadership dilemma to the call and leave empowered.