Digital Twin

Leading with Ideas

Some of the most powerful leaders don’t have a title. They lead through the force of their ideas. This is huge in product roles, research, and change-making. They persuade by presenting insights, storytelling, and painting a picture of what could be better.

Ideas have a profound way of being hard to put down. If the idea is good, it sticks around. If it isn’t, it passes like a breath of air. Once I have an idea in my head, I have to write it out — otherwise, it will grow until I feel a need to release it. I’ve found this to be true with many innovators.

Leading is often just suggesting ideas at the right moment, so the idea can float around until everyone adds to it and adopts it as their own. The final form of the idea will have a little piece of everyone in the group.

This is what I call leading by ideas. It is not a fast process, but it is a very powerful process for building consensus around what needs to be done next.

Sizing Ideas for Different Reasons

1. Visionary Leadership

The biggest of the ideas! This is a vision — closer to what an author of science fiction or a novelist might produce. Visionary ideas provide a window into the future that we could be looking through together. What are the headlines of this future state? Is it a better future to move toward, or a horror show to avoid?

You see visionary leadership everywhere in media and culture. Our imagination is peppered with visions we pick up, remix, and recirculate. But building a true vision is difficult; it requires both imagination and emotion.

Visionary ideas have the widest audience and can unify large groups of people. The catch is consistency. Once you set a course with a big idea, you cannot change it lightly. People choose to follow because they believe in the vision. Changing it breaks the trust they placed in you.

2. Thought Leadership

Thought leaders are the explorers of an idea — testing it, stretching it, and viewing it from different perspectives. They don’t just share one idea; they build many ideas around a central theme.

This style works well alongside visionary leadership but usually reflects a different type of person. If you are imaginative and persuasive, visionary leadership might be your jam. But if you are analytical and skeptical, thought leadership will feel more natural.

Thought leadership is about building an audience for critical, deeper thinking.
Visionary leadership is about building a movement around a shared dream.

3. Idea-Centric Team Leadership

Leading a team is different from leading a crowd. Here, you have a smaller, more personal group of people — and keeping them focused and unified can be challenging, especially in remote environments.

Team members may have different skill levels and emotional intelligence around communication. As a team leader, you need to tend to this ecosystem like a gardener.

Here are a few general principles:

  • Use bite-sized ideas sprinkled throughout presentations and conversations.
  • Name ideas with a few memorable words to make them easy to reference.
  • Listen to quiet people for solutions and loud people for problems — then champion those ideas.

Your job is to encourage innovation, create a culture where the best ideas win, and be known as someone who contributes strong mental models, not just directives.

Focus on growing these skills:

  • Asking great questions.
  • Facilitating discussion rather than dictating.
  • Connecting dots others haven’t noticed.

Team leadership is about gathering momentum week-to-week. It’s more tactical and hands-on compared to the larger-scale efforts of visionary or thought leadership.

Wrapping Up

Ideas are a powerful tool to bring people together. But you have to use the right idea for the right situation.

Is it a strategic, visionary idea meant to inspire a future?
Or a supporting tactical idea meant to move a team forward inside an existing vision?

Leading with ideas means understanding the difference — and learning how to do both.