Topic: Do you think that visionary leaders make great CEOs? (Read 367 times)

A lot of reasons make a good CEO, being supportive of subordinates, knowing what their strengths and weaknesses are and having a vision. Just having one of these will not make them a good CEO though.

This is what many leaders distribute the responsibilities. It shows that nobody is perfect and that such leaders who are maximally qualified are rare in number. But that one person can make or break a company and the rest will lead a lavish life from what he/she has created provided the next group maintains it.

Is the OP going through a bad time with their CEO? Just making a guess.

I am not sure if I recall this correctly, but it was said that Steve Jobs had planned a different sequence for his products and I think his plan was to first develop and unveil the iPad, but then someone from his main development and design team came and said that they have to prioritize the iPhone over the iPad. It was said that Jobs found that compelling and stopped the iPad because one of his employees told him to do so.

I think there was more collaboration and teamwork than you can imagine if you only believe these stories about Steve Jobs and how demanding he was. Employee turnover is of course an indicator for some things, but not for everything. Apple back at the time really set new standards. If it wasn't for some unique characteristics, why would these CEOs all stand out otherwise? And do they really stand out or are they the chosen ones because brands, like politics, are often connected to one main character. Steve Jobs said something like: you don't have to be the smartest in the room for everything, but you have to be the smartest in finding and employing the smartest for everything. Jobs was charismatic and smart and knew how to present Apple in a disruptive and convincing way and how to spread the message that working for Apple is a privilege. The same counts for Musk, Bezos, Gates, Mateschitz (RedBull), Zuckerberg, etc. They all have certain characteristics in common. Likable characteristics? Well, nobody said that, but characteristics that are positively correlated with sustainable success.

Nobody is perfect. That's what we have to understand.
Even though he is a leader with unique strengths and charisma and has almost all the abilities that other leaders don't have, he definitely has weaknesses or something that makes him disliked by many people.
That is normal because that is the reality.
A company will be successful if there is cooperation from all parties, from company leaders to employees, so that they can build a company that can develop its business better.
That is what will make the company achieve success, and when the company achieves success, it must share it with everyone who works in the company so that there is a sense of ownership among everyone.

No one has it all that even an elementary scholar can argue with a professor at some diverse of points.
Even the AI is limited to certain determinations about the future so what about human?
Leadership can be of anyone but takes series of possessions to make a quality leader.
Even at the best of a leader yet he needs a personal adviser (PA) as either his confider or an error troubleshooter who contributes to make suggestions or has the qualities of soluable opinions after the leader brings about some burdens topics or presentations towards his governance.

A monopoly or autocratic leader/CEO who runs a government/Organizations of being unquestionable to his decision and ignorant to considering the suggestions of his subjects (teams/followers) in considerations is an equation approaching to a crambling system.

Basically the team offers significant values of knowledges in diversifications to attaining greater height of expectations in collaborations with different apparatus opinions than an isolated individuals who perceives only his personal abilities as the best and contented enough to reach proefficient public or organizational goals of burden ness or tasks.

Both of you made reasonable points, which I see differently. If a visionary works in a company, his departure depends on many factors. A company that acknowledges his visions and ideas won't hesitate to increase his pay rates and give him offers that will help him grow. That's making him feel like a part of the company. On the contrary, most visionaries like you said, RockBell, don't share their ideas, hence they'll soon stop working for their boss if he doesn't treat them fine or allow them enough time for a vacation. Most visionaries working for other people are bothered with time, how much time they've spent working for the company, and how it has contributed to their lives. I mean what has been achieved from the job? So, in addition to the qualities listed by Latviand, a visionary should be focused on achieving his goals. Being a visionary doesn't zero down to making lots of money. These people must have a goal that pushes them to work every day. They're problem solvers.

That's why when they unleash their skills in a cooperate world, they easily climb the ladder to management level. Similar to the entrepreneur niche, when they begin to follow such a route. A visionary is expected to perform well in any field he finds himself. And when they get to the CEO level, their ideas are unique and may sound scary. It's the only way people get confused about them. They make too many mistakes, but don't stop at it until the goal is achieved. Read the story of Steve Jobs you'll understand better, what a visionary is all about. Their goal is to make the world a better place. Not money. Steve Jobs had a dispute with the boards of directors for not believing in his vision, hence he left the company he built. He came back later and made a bigger picture of the Apple company we hear today. In a nutshell, only a few people get along with visionaries in terms of ideas, and when your team doesn't like your ideas, you'd seem like an incompetent CEO to them.

Being a visionary not only make CEOs but now since they have insight and vision majority of them want to be on their own and start something for themselves self that is what people with vision do they don’t want to share their idea and only people without vision will finish school and they start looking for people to employ them instead of them to use their head to employ their self and instead of waiting to be paid for their time, and that is why if any company should get hold of such people they always want to keep them at ball cost so that they won’t want to go to the extent of opening their own company. People with vision are like a package full of many gifts such as fortune. And aside from that everyone knows what it takes to be a CEO you have to possess a lot of qualities, especially in leadership, the competition is always high in the market so the CEO has to always stand amidst other companies in the same market, weet job but very tasking.
 

I think that visionary leaders are what make companies strong and big. Even though they sometimes lack communication, their quick movements, charisma and consistent vision are the reasons why many visionary leaders become the company's most important assets. Especially in terms of getting investors, usually visionary leaders will easily get the attention of investors because they have charisma and strength which can realize investors' expectations for their company, and this is what a company needs to be big in the market.

I think I can't say because I've not seen a study that shows how successful or unsuccessful a visionary leader is as a CEO. So I'm speaking based on my view of things without any data to back me up.

I believe you don't need to have all the qualities of a leader to be a good CEO. If you are good at what you do and you're above average when it comes to interpersonal relationships I think you're good. What matters is being able to communicate your ideas, vision, and thoughts of the company to those who work with you and you'll be good.
I think the same applies to great CEOs to be visionary leaders. The fact that you're a great CEO doesn't mean you'll be a great leader.
Elon Musk is a great CEO, but I doubt he has the qualities to be a great leader.

The economic and financial side of things is mostly all you care about as a CEO. Your major personal objective is how to keep the company growing. While as a leader there's a slight difference. You care about the economy of the country, but you care about other things like security (foreign and domestic).

One thing that I learned from my personal experience is being lenient and friendly will cause a fall in the results of a company so for a company to be successful it should be producing effective results which may need commanding leadership unless the employees are really dedicated and work for the future of the company not for their monthly pay slip.

Yes, the presence of visionary team members is crucial, and it should be there. Additionally, in a team, there should be at least two people with high leadership qualities to maintain balance and understanding of differences. It's essential to gather opinions from different perspectives. Therefore, it would be challenging if there is only one visionary leader. At some point, they may feel confused, and there's no one to convince the team to take the next step.

And should a CEO also have visionary qualities? Yes, it is highly necessary, and I believe it is a mandatory trait for a CEO to possess.

I’ve got a different opinion. A visionary leader would make an awesome CEO. A visionary leader, considering unforeseen issues that may arise in the future always almost have plans for everything.

Admittedly, visionary leaders who are human and aren’t perfect, may not always be collaborative or think it necessary to seek the opinions of his subordinates when making decisions. But no matter how hard headed that leader is, there would be some executives amongst the board he would value their opinions.

Asides all that, a leader with a vision very knows he has to listen to everyone around him for opinions and comparing these opinions to his own for formulating strategies on how best to grow the company.

thats good argument, I think all of those pretty much sums up what a great CEO is required to be, but also one more thing is that the ability to talk to their underlings in a good way like basically being so good at social skills they could people into doing thing for him is what I think also a good skill a great CEO should have, i've seen many CEO nowadays always having a good social skill to build around a good reputation so that the entire company is trusting him and would do something that he told in unison to keep the company productive and innovative enough.
there are most certainly many traits that can make a great CEO but often time finding one CEO that just good at all those are kinda difficult if i've seen from many of the recent companies fiasco.
its no wonder some company even got at certain length to hire people from oversea if they sees fit because maybe only very few people have that quality that can keep company from facing its lowest point.

Common-minded people are not the best thing to put together, to be honest. What I mean by this is, that you should never put together visionary people to do the same work. What you need is one visionary guy and others who can make that vision come true.  I know it has its own advantages too. But we often see challenges. Such as both visionaries having conflicting ideas or struggling to compromise. That will lead to problems. If you want to bring out the best from both of them, you should put them to do different tasks.

Visionary leaders can make great CEOs but you need people who can compromise or can adjust to the surroundings depending on the situation.

Great CEOs are visionary leaders, which is the result of the people around them. Nothing is great without great minds working together, which is where the work lies. It is very uncommon for two intelligent people to collaborate, but when great minds do, success results because both of them are visionary leaders who make great CEOs.

To answer your question if visionaries make a great CEO, I do think they do but they're an incomplete trait because a great CEO is someone that embodies that vision and cares for the people under him/her, and most of all, a great CEO is someone that also possesses altruistic ideas and always looks out for the greater good even if nobody sees it that way. Vision, altruism, empathy and intelligence are some of the traits that I believe a CEO must possess because I feel like if they don't have any one of the mentioned traits, they're probably a bad one that either exploits their workers, lobbies to dodge taxes and destroy competition, doesn't care if their product or service harms the public or the worst of them all, someone that drives the company into a downward spiral.

That's the issue, because if you want a huge huge company then you need a very visionary leader, or at least founder and they will have to take it until some point. After that they are going to just end up with retiring, being rich, and doing whatever they want and some decent CEO person will continue growing the company. Look at Apple, look at Amazon, they are all doing fine.

Surely there are some companies who are still with their visionary leaders, and there are some who did fine with the founders and some who eventually went lower. That's an important thing and should be considered as a good profit without a doubt. I understand it's a trouble but that should not be an issue for anyone, it's still a decent idea to do that.

You are right. There needs to be a balance between being a visionary leader and a team player.  Most visionary leaders are too strict in their modes of operation.Visionary leaders usually have lots of great ideas in their head and would make sure these ideas come to reality at all cost. In trying to achieve this, they may step on toes, yield to little or no advice from their team members and in the process they even frustrate their employees and make the work environment tensed up. This is not a good sign.

Most employees/team members have better ideas than the visionary leader himself but most times, these ideas from the subordinates might not be appealing to the leader because the ideas do not tally with the big picture he (the leader) has already painted in his head.

No one person knows it all. A good leader should be democratic in nature. Every member of the team should be allowed to make inputs but the final decision still rests on the leader. Giving the team members this right makes them feel valued and it is a big motivation to work.

I will have to agree wit the op, visionary leaders don't completely make great CEOs as most people assume, it is commonly said that a single tree does and will never make an island, every big and successfully company we see today was not built by one man alone, even though people tend to attribute the success a company to the CEO of that company alone, this is a big mistake if I am asked, because, the CEO alone can not run a company, he needs subordinates, boards members, workers, even family and friends who can step in and advice on what to do when on a cross road.

So, the success of a company is often a result of collective efforts, not the effort of one man alone, so, that statement that, a visionary leader makes great CEOs, is a wrong statement.

Of course, naturally people don't like to put in the works but they want to earn. Most people won't mind asking to be paid even when they nap all through in the office or put in less work. To such people, Steve Jobs would be a pain in the ass. Again, Mr Jobs was able to attain should an enviable height by dint of brain work and sleepless nights. It's indeed very sad he didn't live long to reap all he laboured for.

Being a visionary doesn't mean one will be great at business. There's a difference between leadership and business. It's the same way we've great leaders who fail at home as fathers.

When people get the vision of a profitable or beneficial business idea, recruit workers to help them achieve the aim of the business. Before employment, the employer would have to unveil the goals and aspirations of the business and the diverse means to achieve them. It is now the responsibility of the visionary leader to lead and guide these workers to enable them to help him in achieving these goals. Sometimes they might push the workers too hard which might make the workplace terrible, I don't blame them sometimes because predicted goals could intoxicate these visionaries.

Many visionary leaders have proved to be good leaders or business executives, while others might have treated workers inhumanely. Humans have individual differences so for me the actions of these CEOs might be based on their behavior or character. Visionary leaders can make great CEOs if they abide by the labour laws of the nations and treat workers as humans and not machines. Visionary leaders should be allowed to run their businesses because some hired executives might derail from the goals of the company.