Blog Posts

By Dr. Scott.

We have arrived at the final installment in this two month, seven-part series on visionary leadership.  If you missed any of the previous entries in the series, I encourage you to check out what we’ve covered thus far.  We began with the 6 Characteristics of Visionary Leaders and then looked at Strategic Innovation and Inspirational Communication.  Next, we explored Visionary Leadership and the Situation and Visionary Leadership and Personality Traits.  We also examined strategies for Building Visionary Cultures and Maintaining the Vision long term.  We round out this series here by discussing ways to see out a vision and what comes next.

This particular series on visionary leadership is part of the Madison School of Professional Development Wednesday Leadership Blog where we highlight leadership best practices each week.  Check out more from the blog series here.

Putting Visionary Cultures to the Test

Though we discussed visionary cultures throughout this series, two specific pieces, Building Visionary Cultures and Maintaining the Vision, we highlighted strategies for building and maintaining visionary cultures.   Because cultivating a visionary culture is so important, I recommend you start with these two blog entries if you have questions about visionary cultures—what they are, how to build one, and why they are so important.  A visionary culture is of course a necessary first step toward successfully seeing out a visionary project or business.

In Maintaining the Vision, we also discussed best practices for sustaining morale and inspiring team members to work together long-term, toward a common goal.  But, times change.  Market fluctuations, production setbacks, consumer fickleness, an unexpected turnover in a key role—dare I say, a global pandemic—and many, many other challenges await the visionary leader and the cultures they cultivate. 

This is why I always recommend to sustain the culture first.  A strong, visionary culture may not be able to overcome the realities of running out of money before the vision is seen out, but it can help team members realign their thinking when market fluctuations or consumer preferences require a product or production change.  A strong, visionary culture, where team members are motivated to take on challenges and new roles, can “bounce back” from an unexpected change in a key team role.  Sustain the culture first and visionary leaders and visionary organizations can more effectively navigate change.

Adapting to Change

Navigating change also involves adapting to change.  As the old saying goes, “the only constant is change.”  As I highlighted above, innovative and visionary projects come with a high degree of challenges that must be avoided, overcome, or embraced.

Throughout this series on visionary leadership, we’ve examined all of the ways that visionary leaders and visionary cultures are programmed to embrace challenges and find unique and innovative solutions to problems.  In much or our discussions, we’ve focused on the ways that visionary leaders innovate, communicate, and inspire.  In this final installment, though, the change that visionary leaders need to adapt to is more holistic in nature and encompasses the business or organization as a whole.  These “bigger” changes are best understood through the Entrepreneurial Life-Cycle.  For a detailed description and analysis of some of the stages of the business life cycle, I recommend this article from the Harvard Business Review.

In short, as your business or visionary venture matures, decisions need to be made regarding the long-term sustainability of your project.  Five things to consider:

1. Succession Planning: Succession Planning is the often-overlooked element of strategic planning and operations.   Prepare yourself and your team members for future roles or those future roles may never exist.
2. Diversification and Innovation:  If you’ve built an organization around a visionary culture, diversification and innovation should be second nature, but only if visionary leaders adopt and maintain an “we can do that” attitude that fosters change, diversification, and perhaps even rebranding.
3. Be Realistic:  Shoe-string budgets and high stress stakes may inspire visionary leaders and teams early on, but these aren’t very advantageous for sustaining operations long-term.
4. Be Open Minded: The entrepreneurial life cycle is not linear.  Many businesses stagnate, even innovative and visionary ones.  Growth strategies and diversification efforts simply may not work.  It may be time to close, sell, or merge the business.  Keep an open mind and cash in on your success.
5. Be Resilient: Take it from me, when you close a business, it feels personal.  We know from leadership training, that effective leaders are resilient and learn from setbacks and failures.  At the end of a business lifecycle, be resilient and embrace the next.

Embracing the Next

When we study successful, visionary business leaders, we realize that we learn as much from their failures and mistakes as we do their successes and triumphs.  In fact, most of the big names in business history and business today had bumpy starts or had to reverse course to succeed.  Even successful entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, and Walt Disney launched failed ventures.  The reason we know their names?  They embraced the next and kept trying. 

Failure, though, is only one side of the equation.  Embracing the next might come through success—even moderate success.  Visionary leaders with successful, innovate products and services are attractive to both investors and bigger players in the market.  Visionary leaders may find their company’s value is its greatest commodity and sell, get bought out, or merge. 

For visionary leaders, though, that is often not the end of the story.  Often times, it is what comes next—that next big challenge that inspires visionary leaders and teams.  As I write this, I am reminded of several individuals in my network who still or who did reinvent themselves and their entrepreneurial projects every few years or so.  And, each one of them is very successful.  Each project paved the way to their next success because they are, or at least were, always looking for and embracing the next.  One of them embraced the next and is happily retired and enjoying his success.  The other two continue to amaze me with how they carve out success by embracing the next.

Final Thoughts

That about wraps up this series on visionary leadership.  Next week, we’ll embark on a new topic relating to leadership, leadership development, and leadership best practices.  If you have a topic that you would like to see me pontificate on, drop me an email at info@meg-spd.com.

Dr. Scott Eidson is the Executive Vice President of the Madison School of Professional Development and holds doctoral degrees in both history and business.  When not thinking about leadership, he’s usually thinking about surfing or old Volkswagens.