Читать книгу The Female Leader - Sonja Becker - Страница 18

You are an artist who makes what she wants of the world. Your visions and your illusions are your capital. You are a bit of a Pippi Longstocking and a bit of a Sleeping Beauty who has yet to be kissed. In case of emergency the right shoe will do: preferably by Manolo Blahnik, for your ideas enable you to be richly rewarded. Once you have been awakened by a kiss, you see more things than others and are able to create something which others turn into a product, a service or a business.

You live in the future. You can inspire other people to do what you want by your visionary power. Admittedly the daily grind and reality can cause this power to decrease. But in the long term you will always find a perfect solution, because your cheerful nature and your inspired soul keep you alert. And hopefully you will find the perfect partner. But be on your guard against fair weather friends.

Visionaries love adventure. They really do let themselves be led by their sense of curiosity.

Because “everything begins with curiosity”, as the writer Gary Hoover said. Heidi Klum is an example of this type. A genuine mountain girl without being born with a silver spoon in her mouth, she had the idea of making something of herself in New York after winning a model competition. Today she is one of the most sought-after women in the world: a supermodel, a multi-millionairess and married to a pop star. She has also published a book. And among the rules you have to follow on the way to becoming a world star is her motto: “Follow your sense of curiosity.”

Visionaries like entering unknown territory for their life. They discover the possibilities. They never ask “why?” but “why not?” They love the chaos that often accompanies the start up of a company. Every company starts with a vision. Behind every logo of a famous brand name lies a big idea of an individual person, who has realized this vision.

Like Steve Jobs, who has rescued his own former company Apple thanks to unbelievable ideas. Once the computers were perfect child’s play to operate, he saw what was missing: sex. The apple is after all the symbol of temptation. Meanwhile the new sexy Apple machines have become status symbols. In addition, Apple’s “iPod” has revolutionized the whole music industry because it recognized the market potential of digital music which was seen as being half criminal by the complaining industry and made mp3 downloads respectable. Jobs didn’t invent it, but he could see it.

Visionaries play an important role in the start-up phase of a business in particular. They are the captains of the ship and see the new continent over the horizon. They set the course even if there is no navigation chart. They see more than others. Imagination and artistic talent are the midwives of a new business idea.

And these qualities lie in the very nature of visionaries. But when they have to manage complex projects, the ship begins to veer off course. In the worst case the captain’s name is Ahab, and the crew jump overboard. Because visionaries are good at dealing with contradictions their method of working often produces witty results. Consistency they hold to be a sign of mediocrity. Instead they use their breadth of vision to change the direction of thought.

Most visionaries are driven by the ideal of a wonderful new world. They want to go into the service industry for humanity to become more just or more humane as much as for their personal aims. Often they are regarded as mad. Just as once there were machine wreckers who held the sowing machine to be an affront in the eyes of God, or who railed against washing machines in the past, there was hardly anyone thirty years ago who could imagine that computers would be affordable for everyone, that they could be so large or so small, could fit comfortably on a table, and be so simple that children could use them, or that as much data as was stored on those funny winding machines of a size to fit a skyscraper could be stored on a microchip. Even the founder of IBM estimated at the time that the number of computers needed in the world would be between five and ten.

Vision is a form of creative destruction. It opens up doors into new worlds, whereby it mutates into other systems, as the example of Apple shows. Views of the world disintegrate, things change fundamentally, familiar patterns break up, and new realities emerge.

When a culture protects itself against visionary ideas – which is entirely natural – visionaries run the danger of losing the thread. When visionaries are prevented from doing their own thing, they are quick to regard other people as obstacles, or they give in to lazy compromises in order to achieve their aim. Of the three types, the visionary is the most vulnerable, standing at the end with empty hands because she has fallen in love with her ideas or with herself too much. She can be so idealistic that she scares other people away.

Visionaries in the positive sense are extremely curious about what concerns others and infect them with their creativity. Economic visionaries can recognize patterns and requirements in the market that others can’t. Their ideas are as clear as they are mad. This arouses sympathy in many, while others laugh at it. As revenge they roll up their sleeves and turn their ideas into reality. They are entrancing in the true sense of the word, and are able to influence a lot of people and carry them along by their enthusiasm. Only they need people who can bring them down to earth: promoters and managers above all.