If you own a business, you likely started out doing everything yourself. So, it can feel unnatural and difficult to let go of responsibilities as you start adding team members. However, if you want to take your business to the next level, you’ll need to have someone whose skills complement your own. That’s why a company needs a Visionary (aka CEO) and an Integrator (aka president) to succeed.
The Importance of a Visionary
The Visionary entrepreneur’s passion, drive, and creativity are the key elements that help launch a business and fuel a company’s growth. They’re the “dreamers” in the organization who tend to operate more on emotion than on logic and who strongly value the company culture.
Visionaries are naturally creative problem solvers who also come up with a list of ideas every week to improve the business.
But when a company is growing, the Visionary entrepreneur can start to feel swamped with the overwhelming workload, and their momentum begins to sputter and stall. Every great Visionary hits this threshold.
In order for the Visionary to do what they do best, they need someone they can delegate to complete the things that they’re less naturally gifted to do or that aren’t the highest priority and best use of their time to get where they want to go.
To play to their core strengths, the Visionary needs someone who is great at resolving conflict to keep the team harmonious while executing detailed plans for maximum results. Enter the Integrator.
The Importance of an Integrator
In order to maintain harmony among the major functions of the business (sales and marketing, operations, and finance), companies operate better with an Integrator. Put simply, the Integrator acts as the glue that keeps the team together.
The right Integrator for an organization has the Personal Core Focus to manage daily issues as they arise. They provide the steady force in the organization, beat the drum (aka provide cadence), and execute the business plan. They create organizational clarity, fostering clear communication, consistency, and confidence.
To do this, an Integrator serves as the tiebreaker for the leadership team during debates and removes barriers to accomplishing priorities. They hold the leadership team accountable while being accountable themselves for the company’s financial results.
Integrators typically operate more on logic, prioritizing, driving results, force resolution, focus, team unity, and follow-through. They also serve as the filter for all of the Visionary’s ideas, working diligently to honor and execute the best ideas that ultimately fulfill the vision defined in the V/TO®.
Without an Integrator, a Visionary can unwittingly give their entire company whiplash chasing every “shiny new object” they find. Visionaries also have a hard time prioritizing the best of their 100 new ideas and wear themselves out trying to pursue them all (usually at the same time). Visionaries also have a tendency to burn out by having to do all the things they aren’t good at and aren’t interested in doing.
The Key Ingredients to Create Rocket Fuel™
In an entrepreneurial company, the roles of Visionary and Integrator are an essential part of the organization, no matter how big or how small. Each brings their own unique talents to have big ideas and big relationships (Visionary) and bring those ideas to life through actionable steps (Integrator).
As a dynamic duo, the Visionary and Integrator are the key ingredients to take an entrepreneurial company to the next level. It takes both types of leaders at the helm to create “Rocket Fuel.”
Yet, the Visionary and the Integrator couldn’t be more different in terms of how they think and problem solve. Visionaries offer Integrators a creative insight into the business, while Integrators provide the logical and structured approach that is also needed.
Despite their innovative and life-changing ideas, these Visionaries wouldn’t be what they are today without an Integrator who complemented their creative genius. Had they tried to fill the role of the Integrator or hold both positions, they’d have struggled to fulfill the Integrator roles well (and not love doing it) for the long term.
However, when their individual Personal Core Focus is correctly matched with a complementary Integrator, and they’re working toward the same business goals, this duo is unstoppable.
If you’re a leader of a company, which role is in your DNA?
Whichever you may be, Visionary or Integrator, I leave you with this:
V/I Duos™, together as Rocket Fuel, are responsible for something very key and arguably the differentiator between good and great leaders: serving the Greater Good. The Greater Good is defined as every word of the V/TO multiplied by Genuine Care and Concern. This means that every day they obsess about honoring and adhering to every single word of the V/TO. They use it as a filtering mechanism for all words, actions, behaviors, and decision-making within the organization. That, paired with genuine care and concern for everyone within their business (employees, owners, shareholders, clients, partners, and more), is the multiplier for company culture and ultimately achieving desired results.
Having the right Visionary and Integrator within an organization creates clarity and confidence that serving the Greater Good truly can and will be achieved.
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