How becoming a "visionary leader" will help your career!
In her book, The Visionary Leader, Susan Bagyura explains why mindset is so important to business success and how tapping into your creativity will help you achieve your career goals!
CommitmentNow.com: The title of your book is The Visionary Leader. What does it mean to be a visionary leader?
Susan Bagyura: A visionary leader builds a big image of what they want for their organization/industry – this must be something more than profits. If a company is only focused on profits, they miss the big picture and will always be scurrying for business instead of having clients chasing them. It’s best when the vision is along the lines of providing the best service in the region, transforming their industry, transforming lives. This is the leader’s purpose or what I call their ‘why’. A key component is the values the leader will espouse. These are not mere words, but evident in the leader’s behavior and decisions. It is this big picture that inspires and motivates others.
An example that immediately comes to mind is Bill Gates. I remember back in the mid-80’s when he announced his vision of a computer on every desktop and in every home. He was about transforming lives and the way we did business. Many people, even in the industry, thought it was impossible and crazy, but many bought into his vision. In the process, Microsoft made millionaires of more than 10,000 employees and an untold number of investors.
It’s the leader’s vision that that gets them out of bed each day, holding the image through all the obstacles and inspiring others to follow. When people buy into the leader’s vision, they give their absolute best.
After communicating out to everyone the vision, the next important thing for the leader to do is to understand what the why is for their employees, outsource partners and customers. When the leader is focused on helping others get what they want, they will help the leader get what he wants.
CommitmentNow.com: Who should read this book?
Susan: The book is aimed at small business owners, executives and entrepreneurs. I am firm believer that a person must be able to lead themselves before they can lead another individual, group or an organization. However, people have told me that they used this book to get their dream job; to improve their parenting skills and to prepare themselves for a future management position. Personally, I used the book to help me when I was in pursuit of my goal in having the book become an Amazon best seller.
CommitmentNow.com: What do you mean when you state that success is all about mindset?
Susan: Dr. Carl Jung has had a profound influence in my life. One of his concepts that I subscribe to is everything in our life is based on our perception. It is easy to test this just listening to people’s conversation after witnessing the same thing. People’s experiences of the same thing can be dramatically different. We determine if something is good or bad, right or wrong, helpful or unhelpful and so forth – these perceptions are based on our beliefs. These beliefs create our mindset.
There are many people that have the mindset that everything always goes wrong for them. Life is difficult and they can never get ahead. When they are holding beliefs like these and others, then they will attract everything that is in harmony with those beliefs. We don’t get what we want; we get what we belief.
The success mindset is counter-intuitive. Many hold the belief that ‘Seeing is believing’. They look at the results and that is their reality. Successful people build a big image of what they want to see in their lives and get into action moving towards it. The reflection of their lives is ‘Believing is seeing’. They believe in their image, work towards it and then realize in their reality.
Success in every area of business and personal life is all about the mindset. The economy is all about the mindset. While one person complains about how bad business is, someone else in the same industry and the same marketplace is experiencing their great growth. It is not outside influences; it’s what’s going on in the mind of the individual. Success comes from the inside out; not the other way around.
Forbes Magazine wrote in their March 2010 issue about 218 new billionaires averaging $500 million in growth last year. I can assure you that these people aren’t complaining about the economy and how bad everything is. They are spotting opportunities and taking advantage of them. It is the mindset of the person or people that governs the outcome.
CommitmentNow.com: You are an experienced leadership and management coach. What lead you to write this book?
Susan: I started my coaching business while I was living in London. While there, I worked with many small and medium sized businesses. I found that most of the problems in their businesses were a result of their lack of awareness and leadership skills. These business people just jumped in and starting taking actions without determining the purpose for their leadership. When I moved over to Vienna, I was seeing the same thing. It was then that I decided to write a how-to guide for developing the visionary leader mindset.
CommitmentNow.com: In your book you state that many people remain “stuck” at certain performance levels due to a fear of success or issues with their self-esteem. How can these people become “unstuck”?
Susan: Our performance is based on our self image. Dr. Maxwell Maltz, another person with great influence in my life, concluded in his book Psycho-Cybernetics that our self-image is a cybernetic setting just like the thermostat on your furnace. The self image controls what you can and cannot accomplish, what is hard or easy for you, how others will respond to you; everything in your life is pre-determined by your self image. Further a person will never outperform their self image or at least not for long.
This explains why most people who win lotteries eventually lose all the money and end up worse off than they were before. They didn’t change their self image; their thoughts and beliefs about themselves. The same is true for people that continually put on weight and take it off again. The first place to change is the self image; everything else will catch up with it.
It is possible to change one’s self image. The first step is to knowing where the person is so I recommend writing down everything the person believes about themselves. There are lies people believe about themselves and are living their lives based on those lies. Some of the beliefs begin with “I am” and others begin with “you are” and it is important to write down as many as possible.
Afterwards, examine those beliefs. Really dive into them and push for answers. Are they really true? Is there any rational reason for this belief? Could it be a mistake? Would the same conclusion be made about someone else in the same situation? Does the person want to continue to believe it? Why should they continue to act and act as it this were true if there is no good reason to believe it any longer?
Then take a piece of paper and write down what one wants to start believing about themselves. Go into a lot of detail. Visualize life with new beliefs and possibilities for yourself. Get excited and build desire to be, do or have your vision. Leave worries and doubt behind and focus on what you want. Look for a step that you can take that is different from what you are doing now.
For more details, I highly recommend studying Dr. Maltz’s book.
CommitmentNow.com: You discuss difficult types of leadership styles. What are some of these styles and how can a business woman determine which styles work best for her?
Susan: In the book, I draw on three views of leadership as defined by of Dr. Kurt Lewin, Dr. Rensis Likert, and Daniel Goleman. They overlap somewhat, but each has its own particular viewpoint.
The leadership skills you utilize determine your ability to influence and motivate others to contribute to the success of your organization as a team and as individuals. How you lead directly impacts the professionalism practiced in your offices. Your leadership style makes a difference in your earnings, satisfaction, and how effective your share is in the market place for your products or services. Your organization reflects your strengths as well as those things you find challenging.
1. Authoritarian
In the authoritarian or autocratic style, the activities of the entire organization are directed from one source. Usually there is very little feedback coming up the ladder. The leader may be operating in a vacuum and not even realize it. From their viewpoint, things appear to be running smoothly as long as the corporate earnings are good and employees are doing what they are told. This type of leader is results-oriented. Those who are down the organizational chart from them may not realize that. In some circumstances, this style is needed for quick decision-making. However, some such leaders can become micromanagers and unintentionally kill their employees’ motivation to perform well. They may be seen as abusive or difficult to get along with.
2. Democratic
The participative or democratic style is one that involves other people in decision-making. Leadership is usually associated with one person, but leadership can also be the core group at the top of the organization who work directly with the CEO. When employees have a part of the information, they share the responsibility for the wellbeing of the organization and become part of the process. Participating with your employees reinforces the cooperative atmosphere of the organization. Leading by example with hands-on work when everyone needs to pitch in can be found in this style.
3. Delegation
This style of leadership entails giving your employees free reign to use their knowledge and skills to accomplish the organization’s business goals. Delegation doesn’t pass the responsibility fully on to the employees. Ultimately the buck still stops with the leader. Accountability must work at all levels for this style to work at its best. Researchers have found that people who work under a laissez-fair style leader are the least productive. Subordinates are not as cooperative as with other styles of leadership. In addition, they can be very demanding of their leader and don’t work well independently.
The best leaders are those who can be flexible using all of these styles as needed by circumstances or the daily routine of conducting business. Study the styles and competencies to identify your most common style, the one you spend most of your time in. Then, look at other choices and see if they could have been more effective in different circumstances. There is a lot more detail in the book and I have included some of my favorite leaders.
Some questions to ask yourself are:
What style of leadership am I most comfortable using?
What style is a challenge for me?
What areas of leadership are my strengths?
What areas of leadership are most challenging to me?
How do I like to be led?
CommitmentNow.com: How can tapping into her creativity help a woman achieve her goals?
Susan: In order to reach a big goal, we need to do something different than what we are currently doing. The point of a goal is that we become something more than we are now. You know that you are on to a really good goal when you feel excited and scared at the same time.
We are all endowed with 6 mental muscles and just as with all muscles, they must be exercised and developed or they atrophy. Creativity is associated with our mental muscle of Imagination. There was a study which measured the creativity level of a group of 4 year olds scoring them at 95%. These same children were re-measured 3 years later and shockingly the score dropped to 40%. They were conditioned to stop using their imagination by well-meaning adults saying things like: stop daydreaming, don’t ask so many questions, no one knows that so stop asking, etc.
We can all be more creative right now and here are 4 tips to unleash your creativity:
1) Get out of your comfort zone! We tend to get stuck in habits and patterns like driving home the same way, talking to the same people, doing the same things day in and day out. There’s no inspiration in that. New ideas and thoughts come from seeing and doing things we haven’t seen or done before. Ignore what your mother taught you when you were a child and start talking to strangers. Shake up your life and have fun with it.
2) Start asking lots of empowering questions, such as: How can I…? We are programmed to live our lives out of what we know, but many times the new ideas are in what we don’t know. This question alone helps draw to you the people, events or circumstances required in order to create something new. Drop the words “I can’t” completely from your vocabulary as they immediately shut down the creative faculty.
3) Meditate on a daily basis. I know some people may groan reading this, but it’s true. We have to get quiet to receive new thoughts and ideas. How many great ideas have you gotten in the shower or taking a walk? Find a quiet spot, get comfortable and clear your mind. If it starts to drift, gently bring it back to focusing on your question of “how can I …? Double your sales; better serve your customers, retain your top staff; you name the question and then spend quiet time focusing on it. If you continue to do this, you will get very creative ideas.
4) Mastermind with others. The best way to do this is to have on a board or paper a big T. At the top of the T on the left, write “Why we can’t”. On the right side of the T, write “How we can.” Put a big X completely filling the left side of the T and refuse to entertain any reasons why you can’t do something. As a group, just focus your minds on how you can do something. Write all the ideas down without judging. If someone slips out with words such as “that won’t work”, just say next and look for the next idea. This is a simple but very power technique which has brought many people amazing results.
Making some simple shifts will unleash your natural creativity and turn impossibilities into realities.
Susan Bagyura, a leadership/business coach and author of The Visionary Leader: How to Inspire Success From The Top Down, helps small businesses owners, executives and entrepreneurs inspire success by developing the visionary leader mindset. Download a free Visionary Leader demo mix from http://www.susanbagyura.com/Home-Study-Program.html.
Visit Susan, and purchase The Visionary Leader, at www.thevisionaryleader.com.
