Being in a leadership position in- as a manager, business professional, parent or authority figure- offers you both huge opportunities and challenges.
This Kataholos blog is to help you to re-focus and take time to reflect on one of the most important skills that can help you to grow, develop and be massively successful, both in 2025 and beyond.
Your visionary skills.
People need reminding of the big picture, constantly. Why? People get bored, they suffer injuries and accidents, theu have family issues and concerns, they get dragged down by life. And you have the opportunity to lift them up out of a low place and to inspire them! To have strong visionary skills means you can utilise your imagination, your mind and your heart in a positive way: to imagine solutions, improvements, happier times and a better world.
So show people a way forward. See the improvements first in your mind, then share them with your people. Feel the vibrancy and energy in life. Pay attention to our world around you- look, listen and see. Vision is the life force of a leader. Once you have it, the way forwards is always possible.
There are so many! And this is one of my favourite and strongest leadership skills. So here are two ways for you, find the ones that work best for you and keep repeating them, every day is best.
The Colour and the Shape- An Imaginative Exercise
This exercise will be developing you line of enquiry skills, pattern spotting and linking, visual spatial thinking, sequencing and give your imagination a fantastic mental workout! By starting with just two simple stimuli, your mind will fill in the rest in amazing and often surprising ways.
This exercise is a written one. Try them both, as using your visualising skills, as well as your written skills, will combine to make your vision capabilities a lot stronger. It’s all to do with how your brain processes information. Simply put, the more different and complimentary ways that you can engage with something which you are learning, the deeper the imprint on your mind and the better you will become.
What do I want to do with the life I have been given?
This is a fascinating visionary exercise.
Are you surprised by what you wrote? Here’s what I have found after doing this with many people. Most people are actually able to write something that means a great deal to them, in this very short amount of time. They often mention values like kindness and helping others and being a good parent.
And I think this is an excellent exercise to practice and hone your visionary skills for two reasons. Firstly, the fact that it is such an open ended question gives your imagination free reign to truly choose what means most to you- and not focus so much on metrics, targets, numbers and the minutiae of life. Second, having a very short amount of time brings your creativity into very sharp focus; as your mind has to analyse and evaluate very quickly which aspects are more important to you than others.
And here’s a leadership insider tip for you: people always know what is most important to them very quickly, when you do an exercise like this. They may say that they would struggle with such an exercise, not know what to write etc. But when they do the exercise, a large majority of people are able to use their visionary skills to see and hone in on, what is most meaningful to them. Make sure to give them no input or give yourself any extra time or input, if you are doing the exercise yourself. Allow it to flow naturally.
Once you have done these two exercises several times with the same colours, shapes and questions, you can adapt them to help you in different specific real life situations. Let’s look at some now.
A busy mother who is stressed in the evening
Sarah comes home after a full day of work, which although challenging, she has handled very well. However, upon coming home, she feels that the demands placed on her by her children and partner are just too much for her. She ends up going to bed feeling very stressed, but isn’t sure what else she can do, and feels stuck.
So, she tries the 1 Minute Life exercise first.
In her answer, she included:
To be the best mother I can be
To be kind
She reflects on this and decides to use these two statements as a starting point for doing The Colour and The Shape exercise. She does this exercise as she arrives home, in her car, just before going into her house.
She begins with an image of when she felt like she was a great mother, she focuses on the feelings she felt, where she was and what she saw. She allows other images and feelings to come in and add to the picture, but retains the focus on being a great mother. After doing this exercise several times, she feels a lot calmer when she enters her home, and if she feels the stresses rising, she closes her eyes and pictures the great mother image This allows the sensations she felt to come back into her mind.
This visual image and associated feelings of pride and love, bring her great peace into her mind, which she then uses in the evening in her times with her family. And she is noticing big positive improvements in how she feels and how she deals with things.
A Manager who is dealing with confrontational and aggressive behaviours at work
Melissa leads a team of 20 people. She also has several people superior to her, that she answers to. Two members of the team are in strong conflict, and one of them is showing very aggressive behaviour. She feels overwhelmed by the situation, and cannot see a way forwards.
She decides to first do The Colour and The Shape exercise and then The 1 Minute Life exercise, with a focus on improving the situation.
She begins by focusing on seeing the two people involved- not upset and fighting- but calm and in control. Then she allows her imagination to play out. All sorts of things come into her mind- shouting, nasty facial expressions, aggressive body language. But she perseveres and those images begin to recede. She then starts to see some images of lists, online meetings and memories from weeks ago, related to the topics they were arguing about.
It takes her several attempts with this exercise, to find clarity with it, and she gets it. The Colour and The Shape exercise helps her to realise that it is not the two people involved that are in conflict as people- it is their opinions and how here see each other. And as an excellent manager, she knows that she is very good at helping people to offer people useful feedback on performance, and to help them to improve.
She is also aware of how important it will be to set the appropriate and calm environment and tone, to help them move beyond and resolve their conflict; if they start arguing and shouting again, she knows that will not help. The breakthrough for her, is she now sees that she can help the two people to separate out their opinions from who they are as people; and this will help to build a bridge of communication. She feels confident and excited to help them with this.
A Business Owner who knows they have failed their team
José feels so disappointed with himself. He has spent a year in aiming to do his best to meet sales targets, grow the company and support his team, but the results have been poor. Several of his team have left, results have been bad, and morale is low. As an emotionally intelligent and self reflective leader, he knows that a large part of this is his responsibility. However, what he wasn’t ready for are the incredibly strong emotions that he is feeling: guilt, shame and disappointment in himself. He knows that he can’t just keep doing what he is doing and expect it to get better. So he decides to take a step back and start with his vision as a leader.
First, he does The 1 Minute Life exercise. From it he writes down some key things he expressed:
Then he looks at each one severed times, to see if anything comes to mind of help. It doesn’t, which is quite understandable, as his mind feels stressed and irritated and paralysed.
So, he decides to do The Colour and The Shape exercise, but mixes it up a bit.
He decides that instead of a colour and a shape, he is going to focus on one of the happiest moments of his life, a family trip to Portugal, to set a timer for a full 20 minutes and just immerse himself in it. So he does.
He feels the sand on his feet, and the sun on his face. He feels his heart race as he runs along the shoreline with his children. He feels the warmth and contentment as he lies on the bed cuddling his partner, just before going to bed. He experiences the wonder of looking at the beautiful golden honeycomb cliff structures that populate the coastline where they are staying. He feels the lightness, the relief and the peace of being away from the tiny distractions of life and instead feels connected to what truly matters.
And this exercise gives just what he needs. He reflects on the two exercises together and realises that he has been too focused on being what he thought was a great leader, and had forgotten about service and helping others, i.e, his team. He realises he has been putting himself under immense pressure to provide magical ideas and solutions all by himself, instead of asking and speaking with his team.
So he meets with his team immediately. He firstly apologises for not focusing on them and serving them well. Then he moves into help mode and asks them what been need help with and what they think they can help him with. He asks them how he can serve them better, and how they could offer better service to their clients. And he also explains to them about his Portugal experience, and how by focusing on that, he feels inspired: both calmer and more energised, and in a much better mind in which to frame situations and create solutions. He then teaches his team how to do The Colour and the Shape exercise, and suggests that they practice it regularly too. They all agree to give it a try.
One of my favourite images that I keep in my mind to help to restore and replenish my visionary skills, is that of running water. We are all in a running stream, a great river of life and energy that is underneath and within us at all times. Try spending some time gazing at running water: rivers, oceans, swimming pools, even a tap when you do the dishes. It is such a beautiful realisation, to know that we don’t have to opt into life, we are already in it. As water is already within us. As your visionary skills become stronger, you will become more and more aware of our little streams that we all have inside, how they can converge together, into something which soothes, nourishing and gives life. The next time you feel stuck, dried up or worn out, spend some time by running water, and allow it to bathe you, refresh you and to renew the depths of your mind.
WhatsApp: +44 7581412253
Email: michael@kataholos.co.uk
I wish you all the very best on your leadership journey!
Love and best wishes,
