Leadership: Are You A Visionary Or An Empowerer?
Every now and then I read a leadership quote that really strikes me.
This morning I read this one from Professor Henry Mintzberg, author of The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, Managers Not MBAs, and a dozen others on management and organization:
“A leader has to be one of two things: he either has to be a brilliant visionary himself, a truly creative strategist, in which case he can do what he likes and get away with it; or else he has to be a true empowerer who can bring out the best in others.”
A few names come to mind:
- Ronald Reagan – visionary
- Steve Jobs – visionary
- Bill Gates – visionary
- Steve Ballmer – empowerer
- Tony Robbins – empowerer
Is it that black and white? Can you be a visionary AND an empowerer? How will you lead your teams today?
