We all know that vision is one of the cornerstones to effective leadership. Yet despite this well known fact, I’ve worked with many leaders who struggle to effectively communicate their vision, and I am always surprised at how often many leaders overlook this important step. After much analysis, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two types of thinkers: Big Sky Thinkers and Detailed Thinkers, and depending on where you fall on that spectrum, it could determine how well you communicate and execute your vision.
In my new book, Leading Gracefully: A Woman’s Guide to Confident, Authentic and Effective Leadership, I offer a short quiz to my readers so they can quickly assess which category the fall into. Lucky for you, you can find that quiz in my free workbook, 15 Exercises to Feminine Leadership Mastery, that you can download from my website. Once you’ve taken the quiz, you’ll have a better idea of whether you’re someone with great vision but lack in execution, or someone who gets so focused on execution, that you forget to take a step back and get people on board with your vision first. Both steps are crucial to leading well-performing, collaborative teams that produce great results.
Here are 3 tips that I offer in my book, Leading Gracefully that both men and women can practice to ensure they don’t fall into the trap many good intentioned leaders fall into.
1) Decide on Your Goal: Is your goal to motivate and inspire your team to follow your vision? Or is it to execute flawlessly on a strategic plan? You can’t have one without the other; as a leader your job is to inspire your people into action and be clear in your expectations, delegate effectively, create accountability, and deliver results. But depending on whether you are a big-picture thinker or a detailed thinker, this may not come as easily or naturally as one would think. Make sure you do both and preferably do the first before the latter. Each requires a different strategy and approach.
2) Be Assertive: If you’re a Detailed Thinker, make sure you’re taking the step back to assertively communicate your vision before forging ahead with the to-do’s. Many women in particular get stuck here because they tend to get wrapped up in the “proving my value” mentality, taking on tasks and going into execution mode to show they are capable of producing results. Those who are promoted to a higher level of leadership (usually Director level or above), also might struggle with letting go of the “doing” and embrace the “being” required of leadership, which starts with assertively and passionately communicating your vision and getting buy-in from key stakeholders before moving into action-planning.
3) Learn to Delegate: If you are a big-picture thinker, once you’ve communicated your grand vision it’s important to follow through with clearly set expectations, roles, responsibilities, direction, and delegation. Execution does not mean taking everything on yourself. Perfectionists (and many women, again for reasons stated above) have a difficult time with this. The fix: stop micro-managing and start empowering your team to take ownership of their areas of responsibility. You’ll be surprised at the results you get.
To learn more about how to effectively communicate your vision and other tips to be a great leader, check out Leading Gracefully, available on Amazon.