The Leadership Traits You Lack Can Stunt Your Company's Growth
You need to have people with both visionary and integrator traits leading your team.
Guest Author: Brian Blatchley
The Visionary & the Integrator: decide who you are and why you need both on your leadership team.
EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) is a comprehensive business system that provides you with the tools you need to produce the business results you want. As a professional EOS Implementer, Brian Blatchley understands the challenges, hard work, and the true satisfaction of working as, with, and for entrepreneurs.
Being a leader requires a continued sharpening of reflection and self-awareness.
You must look inward to determine where your strengths lie and what traits you may lack.
The backbone of any successful business is the people running the show. As the leader of a company, you need a variety of skill sets in order to get projects off the ground.
If there is a particular skill set that you yourself do not possess, then it is important that you hire someone who can fill in those gaps for you.
Specifically, you need to have both visionaries and integrators leading your team.
What are these two types of leaders, and what makes them so different and yet simultaneously so complementary?
And most importantly, which one are you?
We’ll Let the Expert Explain
EOS Implementer Brian Blatchley has broken down the differences:
“The Visionary is probably the person who started the company. They are full of ideas and the keeper of the culture. The integrator keeps the train running so that the company can meet their goals.”
When looking at this analogy, we can see shades of why both visionaries and integrators are absolutely necessary components to a strong business.
One provides the ideas, while the other is responsible for the execution of those ideas. And while there are certainly visionaries who are capable of executing, that is only true about 50% of the time.
Completing Each Other’s Leadership Gaps
As Brian explains, visionaries often “get everybody excited for an idea and then move on,” which can lead to projects falling apart without an integrator keeping things on track. Company growth will come to a halt if the visionary is forced into what they see as the grind of executing (which is where the integrator shines).
At the same time, only having or being an integrator puts you at risk of missing the compelling ideas that a visionary brings—ideas that spur company growth.
The visionaries and integrators complement each other in such a way that, when paired together, they have the capability to create an impressive business force. If you fill one role and not the other, be sure to make the effort to get on the same page as your counterpart!
Are You a Visionary or an Integrator?
It is important that you reflect on what type of leader you are so that you are better aware of the “gaps” your company may have.
Are you the visionary whose ideas are exciting and integral for the evolution and growth of your business? Or are you an integrator who can get in the weeds and perform the tasks that the visionary may find mundane? Perhaps you are both?
Whatever the case, make sure your company has an inspiring visionary and a competent integrator to complete the winning business formula.
We highly recommend taking the time to self-reflect and decide if you lean towards being the implementor or the visionary. And then plan out how you might change things to better lead your company to growth. For help exploring these roles, there is no one better than Brian Blatchley. Learn more about Brian and EOS here.
For a deep dive, read Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman and Mark Winters. This book explains the critical roles of the Visionary and Integrator and how a relationship between the two can thrive. It can even help Visionaries and Integrators find one another. Rocket Fuel includes assessments to help you determine if you’re a Visionary or an Integrator so you can recognize your needs and find the best partner to suit them.
