When you think of visionary leaders and the traits odds are good that most like one would think of Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett. By definition, they certainly qualify. To be a visionary leader, one must possess some key traits that combine vision and leadership. Here are five essential traits you can cultivate to achieve that exalted status in your own circle.
What is visionary leadership?
Visionary leadership is a management style where a leader focuses on:
Creating a vision and inspiring followers to progress toward it. As such, this leadership style provides long-term objectives and gives the followers a sense of purpose, which guides them toward the vision.
Traits of visionary leaders
Visionary leaders can change the entire course of their organization’s trajectory. These leaders infuse their employees with a sense of purpose and direction toward larger goals. This makes visionary leaders inspiring to both their teams and their customers. Here are few traits of visionary leaders that can help in achieving the goals.
Resilience
One will have to face failure time and again. As a business leader, you’re always predicting the future. Sometimes you’ll get it right, and sometimes you’ll get it wrong. But visionary leaders will keep coming back until they find the success they were looking for.
Enthusiastic
Visionary leaders aren’t just showing up for the paycheck. They believe in the goals that they have set and are passionate believers in their ideas.
Inspiring
A key characteristic of a visionary leader is the ability to inspire the people around them to devote themselves to achieving their vision. These could be your employees, partners, investors or other stakeholders. Being inspirational requires a certain amount of charisma. A magnetic charm that compels others to want to achieve your goals as much as you do.
Visionary
Visionary leaders are dreamers. They see a space that needs filling, although not everyone can see it. That’s the visionary part. They must then find creative ways to connect their vision with reality. That’s the leadership component. If you have one without the other, you’re likely to fail.
Risk-Taking
Risk is an inherent part of creating change. A visionary leader has the courage to endure uncertainty and the willingness to take calculated risks. The trick is not letting financial fears impede progress while still upholding the fiscal responsibility due to stakeholders.
Collaborative Communication
All great leaders are good communicators, but this especially applies to visionary leaders. All those traits that make them see the world differently put them on a different plane from the people they need to work with to achieve their vision. Everyone else needs an explainer, and that must be the person with the vision.
This type of leadership fails if the visionary doesn’t clearly communicate the vision so everyone from top to bottom understands it. Plus, the leader must empower people to achieve it,
Famous visionary leaders
Now that we have a clear sense of what a visionary leader is and the qualities that visionary leaders often have. Here are few examples of famous visionary leaders in the business world that have had a strong vision that they used to change their industries and the world as we know it.
Henry Ford
What would the world look like today if Henry Ford hadn’t revolutionized the automobile industry early in the 20th century? Henry Ford took the automobile and transform it from an invention that no one really knew what to do with into something that shaped the century and still profoundly impacts our world today.
Sam Walton
The American business magnate Sam Walton basically reinvented the retail industry, and it all started by opening one store in 1962. His drive and persistence were clear right from the get-go, though– in less than five years, he had opened more than twenty Walmart locations.
Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett is perhaps the most enduring contemporary example of visionary leadership. One of the things that makes him stand apart other than his tremendous success is the fact that he famously created his fortune by firmly adhering to ethics and principles.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk, would be hard to argue that he isn’t a visionary. The founder, CEO, and chief engineer of SpaceX, the CEO and product architect of Tesla, the CEO and owner of Twitter, the co-founder of Neuralink and Open A.I., and the founder of the Boring Company is an individual that certainly has a vision of change for the world that he is working to drive forward.
Steve Jobs
Jobs inspired his teams via his awe-inspiring vision. Steve Jobs didn’t just revolutionize the worlds of technology, marketing, and product design and built a practically cult-like brand following along the way.
Being visionary isn’t enough to lead a successful company, because you’re unlikely to achieve your vision on your own. To get the help you need from others to get there, you’ll have to take the lead.
