Visionary Leadership: Not a Solo Show, a Collaborative Story

Storytelling is a human craft.

We, for centuries, passed ideas down through oral traditions. Telling each other stories.

Storytelling is a soft skill. It is hard to quantify and has diminished emphasis in the modern working landscape.

Except that it is everywhere and you don’t notice it.

Storytelling is integral for any good leader to get your team on the same page on where you are going in the future. You are taking your team into the unknown so you are going to have to create that world in their head first before they can see what you see.

The trouble is that there can be a lack of people with vision so we settle for managing the resources we have. To all of our detriment.

Vision

Academy Award-winning screenwriter and fairly well-known director Quentin Tarantino articulates what is required of him on set in the clip below.

“It’s not your job to create your vision. It’s your job to have a vision, and then it’s your job to hire talented individuals, to hire talented artists who understand your vision. You articulate it to them, and then they take your vision and they create it.”

Tarantino addresses the modern dilemma of the boss in many organisations. They think they have to be able to do everything.

This makes them operate from a place of fear.

They can’t be a good leader if they can’t do the work.

Tarantino refutes this. His job is to lead. To communicate his vision. His job is not to set up the lights, do the acting, or edit the film, his one job is to communicate to the many talented people on set what he wants and they will use all of their vast skills to achieve his vision.

They won’t get it right every time, and neither will he. That is why they do many takes.

But he understands that his job is not to do, but to lead.

Lead with Vision

Becoming a better storyteller of the world you want to create will help your team understand what you want.

You don’t have to, nor should you, do their job for them.

But you better give them direction on what you want them to be doing.

You may not communicate correctly the first time. There is a person telling the story and people hearing the story. The story might be different to different people.

Luckily, you also can have many takes. You don’t just get one chance to tell your story, but you should be telling your story.