Big pictures and small boxes

Since my confession about leadership in my last entry, I thought I ought to do some thinking about what makes leadership hard, at least for me. We are all wired in slightly different ways. As far as I know I am wired with an inclination towards a more visionary mindset than towards a management mindset. This has caused me some problems from time to time, mainly because I don’t see my role as a manager and others have seen it that way.

The difficulty comes when you try to translate the vision into a workable reality. To do this I have cone to the conclusion that I need to surround myself with people who are pioneers. Pioneers are the kind of people who can hear the dream and are willing and able to turn the dream into reality with the minimum of information. I always remember during my previous life in R&D for a big multinational company, taking a rough sketch of an idea for a piece of equipment to our engineers for fabrication. It was amazing to see this sketch turned into a real piece of kit by someone who could recognise my concept and make it work. With all the will in the world I could not have done that.

Of course not everyone is a pioneer. Some are settlers. Settlers are so important to the vision because without them there would be no food on the table. Settlers settle. They build farms and houses. They make sure everything runs as it should. Whilst the visionaries are off dreaming new dreams and the pioneers are out charting new courses, the settlers keep the garden under control.

Each of these groups needs a different amount of information to help them see what is going on around them. The pioneers are happy with the big picture, the settlers need the small boxes.

So here I am, trying to work out what goes in which box and how to package it so that everyone can get a piece of the picture that is manageable for them. It’s my heartfelt desire as a leader to help everyone get in on the action, to understand the important role that they play in fulfilling the bigger vision of our life together.

So I recognise that for me doing this work of translating vision into reality is hard, but I’ll do my best so that everyone around me has the chance to do what they do best for the glory of God. I’m off now to draw some big pictures and try to stuff them into some small boxes!