08 How to Lead with Vision

Are you stuck in task mode, checking off endless boxes but still feeling unfulfilled? In this episode of Joyfully Unstoppable, we explore what it really means to lead with vision—not just efficiency.

Too often, high-achieving women are praised for getting things done, but rarely for dreaming boldly or leading with long-term purpose. But here's the truth: great leaders don’t just manage tasks—they anchor their leadership in clarity, values, and intention. Leaders with vision move from reactive to purposeful, from overwhelmed to aligned.

✨ In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why your to-do list isn’t enough
• How to spot the signs of vision drift
• A simple 3-step process to reconnect with your leadership vision
• How to align your daily actions with long-term impact

If you’re ready to lead with more clarity, confidence, and meaning—this episode is for you.

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Transcript

0:12

Okay. Welcome to Joyfully Unstoppable, the podcast for women who are ready to lead boldly, live lightly, and reclaim their joy. Whether you're leading a team, a classroom, or your own big, beautiful life, I'm so glad you found us. I'm your host, Becky Ham leadership coach, speaker and founder of Women Lead Well, after years of high level leadership, I discovered that success. Doesn't have to come at the cost of your peace, your values, or your wellbeing. Each week, we'll explore what it means to lead with clarity, confidence, and authenticity. Even in a world that tells you to hustle harder and prove your worth, you carry a lot. Let's help it feel lighter. Now, last week we talked about the beauty of a simplified to-do list, the kind that helps you stop spending, start focusing, and finally breathe. When your days are packed and your mind is racing. A clean prioritized list can feel like a lifeline. It creates clarity, it cuts through overwhelm, and for many women, it offers a rare sense of control in a chaotic world, but. A to-do list can only organize today. It can't decide where you're going. That's where many brilliant, driven, awesome women get stuck. We know how to get things done. We are natural achievers. We check boxes, we meet deadlines, lead meetings show up for everyone around us. But even after an incredibly productive day, we can still end up staring at the ceiling at night asking ourselves. Did I? Did I, did I actually move the needle on what matters most to-do lists are helpful, but if you're not careful, they can keep you reactive instead of reflective, efficient, instead of intentional and man, busy instead of bold. The truth is you were made for more than just managing your day. You were made to lead it with vision, not just a list. Now, let's be honest, to-do lists are incredibly satisfying. They give you a sense of accomplishment. They offer structure in the middle of swirling demands. They help you focus, delegate, and feel productive. And I'll be the first to say they are a powerful tool, and I still use one every single day. I mean, come on. I did a whole episode on them last week and developed a principle to-do list for you. So it's pretty clear that I am a fan. But here's where they fall short a to-do list can't tell you what actually matters. It can't distinguish between what's urgent and what's meaningful, and it certainly can't determine what success looks like for you in this season of your life. So when the list becomes your leader. You start reacting instead of choosing. You measure your worth by how much you can get done rather than by the depth of your impact. You hustle your way through days, weeks, even entire seasons, and still feel disconnected from your purpose. Productivity without purpose becomes a cycle of burnout. That's not failure. It's a signal, and that's why vision matters. So let's talk about what it really means to lead with vision. Leading with vision means you're guided by purpose rather than pressure. It's not about having a five year strategic plan or a Pinterest worthy vision board, although those are absolutely delightful if they light you up. It's about cultivating a clear sense of direction, one that's rooted in your values. That's aligned with your priorities and that reflects the kind of leader you intend to be when you lead with vision. Your work has meaning beyond the tasks. Your energy isn't just scattered across what's urgent. It's focused on what's important. Vision brings intention into the choices you make, the opportunities you pursue, and the way you show up for yourself and others. And I wanna be real clear about this. Visionary leadership is not reserved for CEOs or business owners. It's available to anyone in any role who chooses to lead their time, their team, or even themselves with clarity and purpose. You can be a visionary as a department head, a team lead, a teacher, a project manager, a nonprofit director, a stay at home parent. Vision isn't about position. It's about direction. So how can you tell if you're operating without a clear vision? Often the signs are subtle, but they are persistent. Number one, you may feel yourself ending most days feeling drained, but unsure about what you actually accomplished. Your calendar might be full, but you feel disconnected from your work. The things on your calendar, the tasks on your to-do lists aren't particularly meaningful to you. Number two, you may find it difficult to say no even if you know you're stretched too thin. Why? Because you haven't prioritized, so you have no real way to decide what not to do. Nothing gets voted off the island. Number three. Now, maybe you haven't had time to think about the big picture in weeks or months. You're doing a lot, but you're not feeling fulfilled. I wanna be clear, these are not signs of failure, but they are signs of misalignment. When your days are filled with tasks but disconnected from a larger purpose, your leadership starts to feel like a grind instead of a calling. And now that doesn't mean you're doing it wrong, it just means it's time to recalibrate. Let's talk about how to reconnect with your vision, because the good news is you don't need a full on retreat or six months sabbatical to rediscover your vision. Often all it takes is a moment. You just need space to ask yourself some deeper questions and listen for honest answers. Start by asking yourself, what kind of leader do I wanna be in this season? Maybe this season calls for you to be a highly engaged hands-on leader, or maybe you and your team are best served by your stepping back, so team members can step up and stretch in ways that support their professional growth. Maybe life at home is overflowing. You've got kids, aging parents. There's no shortage of priorities outside of work that can influence how we show up as leaders. And so maybe the kind of leader you wanna be in this season is agile, flexible. Again, what kind of leader do you want to be in this season? Because once you're clear on that, you will naturally see certain goals and objectives as aligned and others as not. Question two. What kind of impact do I want to have? How do I want my team to remember me when I'm gone as the hard charger? Who drove them to work harder and meet stretch goal after stretch goal as the boss who invested in their growth, protected them from a larger toxic culture who cared about their lives and priorities outside of work? None of these are mutually exclusive, but take some time to get clear on what kind of impact you wanna have. Because once you're clear on that, it gets a whole lot easier to say no to tasks and priorities that don't align. Three, what's calling to me beneath the noise of my responsibilities? Why did I start a podcast? At the same time, I'm launching a business and creating an online program because I've had this voice in the back of my head telling me to do it for over a year, and I finally got sick of ignoring it. My core values include connection. After spending decades tied in knots, leading from a place of over-functioning and approval seeking completely disconnected from who I am as a person and a leader, I am now compelled to share what I know about joyful, sustainable, and authentic leadership with women so they can get there faster, that they don't have to lose decades of their life struggling. Plus I like talking and a podcast lets me talk to more, than my one-to-one clients. Right? Also in coaching, I don't bring answers. I ask questions, but my clients find their own answers. So the podcast lets me share what I think in a way that coaching just doesn't. So for you, what's calling you? What's the ping you've been ignoring? That insight is orienting you in a particular direction. Maybe you're not ready to move that way today, but that direction is a clue to where your vision is pointed. So again, ask yourself, what kind of leader do I want to be in this season? What kind of impact do I wanna have? What's calling to me beneath the noise of my responsibilities? These aren't easy questions. But they're the right ones. Vision begins in reflection, not hustle. Now, once you've paused to reflect, take a step back and zoom out. Think beyond your daily tasks. What do you want to move forward this year to get there? What do you need to move forward this quarter, this month, this week? What goals or outcomes would feel deeply meaningful? Not just impressive on paper, but soul satisfying in real life. Finally, take some time to define what I like to call your vision anchors. Three to five core values or focus areas that help guide your decisions, actions and energy. These might include things like creativity, growth, integrity, connection, freedom, or peace. I might be sharing my vision anchors. When you define your vision anchors, you give yourself a compass. It's something to return to when the demands of the day try to pull you in every direction. This is something that helps guide your decision making. So those values, those vision anchors are critical. Now, how do you align your to-do list with your vision? Let's bring this full circle. You don't need to throw out your to-do list. In fact, it can be one of your best tools when it's being led by your vision. One powerful practice to start this week is by setting a vision aligned intention. I actually have this for you in the weekly reset routine, which obviously I'll link in the show notes below. But before you jump into planning meetings or replying to emails, ask yourself. What would it look like to make meaningful progress? This week? You choose one or two focus areas that support your broader goals. Then as you build out your to-do list, take a moment and connect each task to something larger. For example, instead of listing write report, you might reframe it as communicate progress to build transparency and trust with the team and stakeholders. That's a lot to put on your to-do list. So you might still write, write report, but take the time in your mind to connect the mundane task to the purpose that task provides. If your list is overflowing, when you do that, mind up of all the things, hold them against your vision anchors what actually deserves your energy, what can be ditched, delegated, or delayed. Let your vision be the filter, not just your inbox. You'll see this built into the simplified to-do list that I offered you guys last week. All you have to do is sort your tasks and then only do the ones on the do list and only put things on the do list that are tied to your vision and your values. You might even try adding a column to your list labeled why it matters. This column isn't for anyone else, it's for you. It's a small reminder that you're not just working, you are leading and your leadership has direction. Okay. All of this sounds great in theory, but how do you stay anchored in vision? When life gets busy? Of course, some days will feel like survival mode. You'll be pulled in a dozen directions and tempted to fall back into your reactive patterns. That's normal. The goal isn't to live perfectly aligned in every moment. That's not feasible. The goal is to return to alignment more quickly, more intentionally, and with more grace. And there are a few habits that can help a one minute kind of vision. Pause each morning, a quiet moment to ask yourself what matters most today. This can shift your mindset from reactive to intentional. A weekly reflection practice where you jot down one way you lived your vision, and one area where you drifted. That can build your awareness over time. And don't underestimate the power of white space, vision needs room to breathe. Protecting even a few minutes each week for thinking, dreaming, or planning can create the kind of clarity that no meeting ever will. When you lead from vision, you stop reacting and start creating. You trade burnout for alignment and your days feel less like a race and more like a rhythm. And now I want you to remember this. You were made to lead with vision. You carry so much, you give so much. And I want you to know this, your leadership. Deserves more than just a checklist. You were made to lead with clarity, with confidence, and with purpose. And when you reconnect with your vision, your to-do list becomes a powerful tool, not just a task master. You begin to make decisions with ease, protect your energy with confidence, and lead in a way that feels joyful, sustainable, and deeply authentic. So here's your invitation. I. Revisit your to-do list and before you add another task, ask yourself, what vision is this supporting? Because you weren't just made to get things done. You were made to make a difference. If this episode sparked something in you, I'd love to invite you to download my free weekly reset routine. It's a powerful first step toward leading in a way that sustains you. You'll find the link in the show notes because a clear vision isn't a fantasy, it's a practice, and you can begin today. Okay. Thanks so much for joining me on Joyfully Unstoppable. If you liked this episode, please subscribe, share it with friends. We are a small but mighty brand New baby podcast and we've already got over a hundred downloads. I can't tell you how excited I am about that. so thank you. Thank you for all of you who are listening through these early days. I appreciate you more than you can know. I hope you have a great day, a great week, and I'll see you next time. Bye.