In my experience, operational leaders and visionary leaders are two different types of people. You want both types on a senior leadership team. Too many of the first and the team gets bogged down in the detail. Too many of the second and the team ends up in LALA land.
The thing that can balance up either one is a shared purpose (or strategy). I particularly like using Amazon’s Narrative approach as a way to find this for common ground. More at:
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/startups/startup-advice-how-to-write-a-narrative/
Avoid PowerPoint at all costs as it will not give you this common ground – it is the tool of visionaries. Don’t get bogged down in Excel either. It’s the tool of Operations and Finance folks.
Learn to write better and more concise English and get feedback on what you’ve written by listening more.
You can then move up and down this scale of short-to-long term thinking as appropriate, adding in pictures, charts and tables to clarify the position for the folks that need it.
At the same time you bring the whole team with you along the way! It is no coincidence that the word “WORD” is one of the first words in the bible.
(A suitable meditation to reflect on – on this Sunday morning – even though I haven’t been to church!).
