I'm Training to Become a Visionary
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All my corporate life, I was the getter-done-er. The bosses painted the picture of where we’re going and I gathered the troops and made their dreams a reality. I implemented systems. I built trust on my team. We stayed the course and executed the hell out of whatever goal we were given.
It didn’t take me long to realize that not everyone operated in this way. The bosses seemed to be in a perpetual state of dreaming and changing. Priorities changed frequently. They made swift decisions that often upended what my team had been so diligently working on. To them, there were so many opportunities. So many partnerships. So many new things to try. So many connections to make.
I would later come to learn that the world of business consultants categorized these two distinct ways of being as “visionaries” and “integrators.”
The bosses were visionaries: Risk-takers, constantly coming up with ideas and opportunities, pivoting easily, hungry for the next thing, making decisions like they were NBD.
And I was an integrator: Focused, careful, able to rally the team to get important work done and build systems around everything so it got easier and easier.
I got joy out of ever-perfecting the thing we were already doing. They got joy out of doing the next thing.
While the tendencies of the bosses sometimes frustrated me, I was inspired by the way they operated in the world. In my mind, the risk-taking visionary was a way more exciting profile than the boring integrator. Visionaries get the fame. Visionaries get the glory.
Then I Started a Business
Of course most people have some Visionary and some Integrator tendencies. I apparently had enough Visionary in me to start my own business. No one expects an Integrator to start a business...least of all, the Integrator themselves.
Yet somehow it happened.
I knew the chips were stacked against me because my go-to way of being was to optimize existing systems and projects - not to start new ones. I knew that wouldn’t work. I had other entrepreneurial friends for whom this whole business-building thing seemed to come so easily. They seemed baffled at how slowly I was moving with every decision. I was so annoyed with the way I was. And with the way they were. Why was this so hard for me?
Over time, the more I flexed my Visionary muscle, the stronger it got. Leap after leap, I surprised myself with the risks I was willing to take without first gathering all the information. It was still approximately 789 times harder for me than for my Visionary friends, but I persisted.
Things Have Shifted
Two years later, I’m proud of the business I’ve built and how far I’ve come by pushing way outside my comfort zone. I can honestly say that the work we do for our clients brings them immense value. And I have employees who love what they do and are so happy to have the opportunity to do this work. And I’ve grown and learned more than any other two-year period in my life. And I even made a little money doing it. If my Visionary to Integrator ratio used to be 15:85, it’s definitely more like 30:70 now.
But 30:70 does not a Visionary make. The struggle is real to put on my Visionary pants every day and do the things that are just so out of my normal operating manual. Maybe it’ll eventually be more natural, but from all the research I’ve done, it’s not very likely. This part of things may just always be really really hard. Like FOR-EV-ER. And they tell me the more my business grows, the less of an Integrator I’m supposed to be. I’m supposed to let the others do that part.
And so here are the questions I’m wrestling with:
Am I leaving the joy of being the “getter-done-er” on the table and wasting my most valuable talents at the expense of trying to be something I’m not? (Because I really do love it.)
Might I get more satisfaction helping some amazing Visionary with whom I share the same core values to kick some serious ass?
How would it feel to be a part of a leadership team again...with everyone rowing together on a shared mission?
Do I just want to keep building my business because it’s the sexy, badass thing to do? (Said another way...is this just about my EGO?)
Or maybe this whole Visionary/Integrator stuff all a bunch of bullshit and all I have to do is grit my teeth and keep going. Maybe you don’t need to be a true Visionary to lead a successful business after all. Maybe I just need more time and more learning.
What’s the Next Right Thing?
My decision isn’t urgent and probably isn’t as black-and-white as whether shut down my business or take a job. But it’s the first time in two years that I’ve questioned the vision of growing my business into a real “thing.” And I honestly don’t know what’s next. It’s an unsettling place to be, but arriving here was probably inevitable.
For now, my only decision is to allow myself as much time as I need to sit with the question of what’s next .
And my inner Visionary is rolling her eyes.