Leadership Types (2 of 5): The Visionary Influencer

Do you know some people that are just likable? They see the big picture. They're always dressed nice. They're funny, have a lot of friends, but they're horrible at details. Chances are they're a visionary influencer. You need to get on their side, and we're going to teach you how now. Welcome to Leadership Mindset 2.0, practical neuroscience and psychology to transform you from a tactical doer into a strategic leader. Here is your host, former Social Entrepreneur of the Year and coach to some of the world's top executives, R. Michael Anderson. Hello, leaders. Great to be with you. Here is what we're going to be talking about today. Now we're going to do a 5-session deep dive into one of each of the 4 leadership styles. And then on the 5th session, we're going to talk about how all 4 of them work together. Now you can find out your leadership style by going to rmichaelanderson.com/leadershipquiz. And it's important that you understand your leadership style, but to me, the power really comes on understanding other people's as well and how you interact with them. Because it's great to know our own strengths and weaknesses and things we can do around there, and then how to interact with other people, because when we know what their leadership style is, then we can really meet them where they're at. So there's a lot of power in understanding all of this. Before we get into that, one thing I'm going to do is I'm going to talk about something that happened. This morning with my wife, all these leadership lessons in marriage. Yes, we are going to Turkey on our holiday in about a week. And I made all the reservations, things, and I organized except for the dog. We have a dog. And of course, you know, if you have a dog and you go away, you have to find somebody to watch the dog. It can be a real pain. And we've talked about a couple of different options. We've asked a couple of different people over the last couple of weeks. And then this morning, in my mind, I made all these arrangements, you know, flight, hotel, et cetera. And I'm like, okay, well, she can take care of the dog. And I Asked her this morning, I'm like, well, what are you going to do with the dog? She says, well, what do you mean? What am I going to do with it? She's like, we've decided everything, have we? I was like, well, yeah. And I can't remember exactly what I said. I said, honey, I made all these reservations. I spent all this time. Why can't you just handle the dog? She's like, well, you never asked me to. She's like, I'm happy to do it, but you know, we've never clarified that and you've never mentioned anything about that. And I was like, shoot. And I apologized to her and I realized how often does this happen in leadership when you have in your mind that maybe somebody's going to handle something, they're going you're going to handle something a certain way, yet you don't take that small amount of time to express that and to get clarity on that and to get an agreement on that. She's like, I'm happy to do it. I just, we never talked about it. You never mentioned it. And I was like, look, I made all this stuff up in my mind and I've never communicated that. And it would've took a simple sentence or a text or whatever it is. Say, hey honey, I get everything else covered. Can you just cover the dog? I also do a lot of coaching. I talked to this one lady and she says her boss, will say the team really wants to do a good job for this boss, but they're having a bit of a disconnect. And the boss is like, you didn't do this good enough, or you didn't do this the way I wanted you to. And then they ask, well, how do you want me to do this? And she's like, you should know. Well, obviously they don't know, or they would be doing it that way. It's up to you as a leader most of the time to be like, look, this is what I expect from you. This is how I expect it. This is the output, et cetera. I want you to do it this way in this area. You can choose how you do it in this area. Spend a little bit of time upfront as a leader, and then you're going to save yourself a a lot of headaches on the back end. All right. Just a little bit of, just a quick story about my leadership failings this morning. But this is important because we all have these blind spots. No matter how much we do this, we all have these blind spots. Now we're going to go into the leadership styles. There's 4 leadership styles: dominant commander, visionary influencer, logical creator, supportive collaborator. Last time we talked about dominant commander. These are the type of people that get right to the point. They really like to win. They really like to achieve. You don't need small talk. You don't need stories. They just really want to get things done. The problem with dominant commanders is sometimes they can steamroll people because they have such a strong will, such a strong personality that they want to get things done. And it's like, they're so focused on getting things done that they're not kind to other people. They're not polite to other people. They sometimes don't collaborate. They sometimes don't get people on board. They sometimes don't get people on their side as they're getting things done and they can come across as a bully. I'm part dominant commander, logical creator, and I can get very bullying and assertive, and that can be a a real turnoff to people, especially when I'm stressed. And so we had a question and I'm going to answer this question. And what they say is, as a dominant commander, how would you want someone to say to you, I need a more friendly conversation before we can get to the topic at hand? And how would you like someone to say, it feels like I'm being railroaded by your behavior and I'm feeling really uncomfortable. And in those instances, what would I do if you didn't respond positively to those kinds of feedback points and continued to go on and on and on? So I believe what she's saying is, look, If there's a dominant commander, other people, how do they say, look, you're going too fast, you're being too assertive, it's making me uncomfortable, I'm not on board, I don't understand, because that's one of the main dominant commander's blind spots. So if we get caught in that, because there's a lot of positives to all these, but when we got caught in one of these blind spots, what do you do? If these are people that you work with a lot, sometimes the best way to do this is add a little bit of humor and humility and say, hey, I know I can get caught up in the end goal. And when I get caught up in the end goal, I might not listen to you as much. I might not warm up to the conversation as much. I've gotten feedback and I know that I do this. So by taking ownership and taking responsibility, there's a real power in that. And then they're gonna be more vulnerable and open as well. And to say, you know what, I apologize for all the times in the past I did that. I'm working on that. And I'm probably gonna get caught up in that in the future. So let's just have like a little phrase or something. And you might even say, hey, you know, my leadership types, dominant commander. And you know, I'm good at getting things done and I get too caught up in that. So if you ever find that I'm like barking orders, that I'm trying to steamroll you, that I'm not listening to you, and make a little funny phrase like, hey, you're being too much of a dominant commander right now, or you're in your dominant commander role or something like that. And then have a little bit funny, like you're being a little bit too dominant commander-y or something, because humor can defuse so many situations in life, especially like this when we're too intense, because dominant commanders bring that intensity, give them permission. Say, look, if you get caught, if you feel like I'm being too overbearing, if you feel like you'd like to slow the conversation down, you know, raise your hand and say too much dominant commander, too much dominant commander. And then that's going to be uncomfortable for them to say. So, so important that if they ever say that, you stop and you take a breath because you're probably on a roll. It's probably not a good roll. It's probably not going somewhere good. So you have to realize you're going to have to take a breath or two., and you can even say that, when you tell me that, I'm gonna take a minute or two to collect myself. And I want you to say that. You gotta give them permission. It's okay to say that at any time. And realize as a dominant commander, when that happens, the problem is it's gonna be hard for you to receive that because you're in your dominant commander mode. If you get like a little timeout, it's gonna be tough. So you're gonna have to force yourself when they say that to take a couple breaths, center yourself, and then either ask what you could do to connect with them more, or to say, hey, I was being a little bit assertive here. Is that why you're saying this? So you wanna have an agreement. We have expectations versus agreements. This is what one of my coaches, Steve Chandler, talks about. And when I told that story in the beginning about my wife and I had an expectation, not an agreement, right? I had an expectation she was gonna look after the dog, not an agreement. Once it was agreement, it's no problem. In this case, you're making an agreement with the other person. We wanna move out of expectations into agreements. It's like, hey, you know, this is a behavior I'm working to change. So our agreement is anytime you feel like this, that you can say this and I'm going to course correct. So that is what you can do. And again, the more you can have a little laugh about this to make this not massively serious, the better it is. This is not a comedy routine or anything, but it could be a little funny. And when you add a bit of that levity in there, and you can even talk about, say, when do you catch me doing this? And they'll be like, this time and this time. You're like, yeah, yeah, I get it. I get it. Yeah. Thanks for the feedback. And I'm open to that. And that really shows power and people are going to really respect that about you. And it's also hard for dominant commanders to admit vulnerability and weakness. So it's a good growth area. So let's move to Visionary Influencer. So a Visionary Influencer is another one of these leadership styles. And the Visionary Influencer are the fun people. They're the people that talk with their hands, tell a bunch of stories. They're always happy. They have a lot of friends. They have a lot of relationships. And Visionary Influencers are driven by relationships, friends, and what other people think of them, to be quite honest with you. So visionary influencers often dress nice. They're friendly. They're outgoing. They're extroverted. They want to talk to everybody. They love talking. They love big picture things. They're called visionary influencers because they love to talk about possibilities. They love to talk about what you can do out there. They love to talk about strategy, all those other big things. They are often very persuasive. If you ask them to speak in front of a crowd, they're like, I'm in. I'm good. I'm doing that. They like being the center of attention, enjoy the spotlight. They're naturally likable with charisma. They appreciate interacting with others. They'll notice others quickly and help them feel comfortable in groups. They easily build rapport. They're likable, strong relationships. You'll know a visionary influencer because often gregarious. Hey, talk with your hands. Dude, good to meet you. Great to— oh, there's Joe. I love Joe. Hey Mary, how are you doing? Good to see you. How are the kids? They love to have a coffee with you, just chat and chat and chat. They're often always late. They're often disorganized. They love to talk about what you can do. And that's what visionary influencers are great at doing. They're often in marketing. They're often in creative industries because that, that's what they do. So they're energizing. They're great to have in a team, optimistic, always bring the great energy. And they really value relationships. So that's what they're really good at. Where their blind spots are. They hate detail. They like big picture, but they hate detail. Their personal lives and their task list is always a bit of a mess because they get fear of missing out. Visionary influencers never want to be left out of anything. So they say yes to everything. And then they sometimes they overwhelm themselves and get nothing done. And they're always late because, you know, they're not paying attention to time. They have a to-do list. They let people down because they say yes to everything. They don't really have as much discipline as some of the other people, because they're so in the moment and so what's going on, they will get overcommitted. So that's what visionary influencers do, sometimes find themselves in. Visionary influencers, they have more imposter syndrome than any other of the type. There's a couple of reasons there. Visionary influencers always want to play with the cool kids. So they're always pushing themselves up. They always want to get that promotion. They normally have the good energy. They get promoted. They always want to start punching above their weight. And they do, they get themselves into those big meetings and things, but they are externally validated in a lot of ways. So they're always worried about what other people think of them. And that creates imposter syndrome. Oh my God, am I doing a good enough job here? Am I doing a good enough job there? And so they get caught in imposter syndrome because they really care what other people think about them. And they are not good at details. So you don't want a visionary influencer in a very detail-oriented role. And then they also aren't good at difficult conversations because they don't like conflict. They don't want anything to disrupt the relationship. So they're somewhat big procrastinators about stuff they don't like, because there's so much stuff they do like and they want to spend their time there. And then they will often put off difficult conversations and holding people accountable because they want to be friends with everybody because they're so relationship-driven. So if you are a Visionary Influencer, just remember that you may avoid problems because it's easier to do. You may need to implement systems in your life to handle the details. You have to realize not to say yes to everybody and that everybody may not like you. As a leader, and that's okay. It's okay if some people don't like you. And you really want to understand and not get caught into places where you will need to manage a lot of details and projects and things. And visionary influencers often find themselves in— dominant commanders and visionary influencers more than the others will find themselves in leadership roles. And the visionary influencers, because they speak and talk visionary, big picture, they'll put themselves out there. They're extroverted. They really want to keep moving forward in those types of things. And they have that kind of confidence. So it's interesting. They have a great confidence, a lot of imposter syndrome oftentimes. Now, if you're selling to a visionary influencer or getting them on board with an idea, you want to paint the big picture of the possibilities. You want to get them excited. Talk about how if they do this, everybody's going to look at them like a thought leader or a leader. They want to be on the cutting edge of things. This is new technology. This is what everybody's going to be doing in a year. You can be the first one. Everybody will look up to you. They'll be like, ah, who's this cool person there? It's going to be so fun. They love fun. You're gonna have these relationships, et cetera. So you want to paint the big picture of possibilities. What you don't want to do with a visionary influencer is go into detail. They will turn off. They will get bored so easy. All you got to do is paint that big picture of possibilities and just leave the details to somebody else. That's how you get them on board. That's the visionary influencer, driven by relationships, by possibilities, and by being seen. At their best, they energize a room and get everybody excited about what is possible. And at worst, they say yes to everything, avoid the hard conversations, and quietly carry more imposter syndrome than anyone realizes, including themselves. So here's your challenge, dear leader. This week, are you a visionary influencer? If you are, where are the systems that you've put in to manage your life, manage your details? And where are you being too big, too conceptual? You might need to understand that other people are trying to support you, but they maybe get confused. If you have visionary influence in your life, think about people that are these, these big picture people. How are you perhaps going into too much, too much detail with them, getting too granular and not meeting them with where they want to be met at? Go out there, shift, and really get this person back on your side. That's it for today's episode, but I have one more question for you. Do you have an upcoming event that could benefit from a Leadership Mindset 2.0 keynote or facilitation? One of my favorite things to do is speak and work with groups at events and leadership meetings. If you want to learn more about my speaking, go to rmichaelanderson.com/speaking where you can see me on stage and inquire about bringing me in for your event. Then we can both meet in person and your team can get empowered with the latest mindset tools and strategies.