10 THE LANGUAGE OF LEADERSHIP IS…VISIONARY
If you were to put together a short list of the world's greatest visionaries, you would have to include Elon Musk at or near the top. Musk, a co-founder of PayPal, is best known for founding Tesla Motors (where he is now CEO and product architect) and SpaceX (where he is the CEO and CTO).
Musk's brilliance is found in his ability to think and dream big – but it's also a reflection of his ability to communicate his vision for the future in a way that inspires others to get behind him. He never misses an opportunity to share his vision(s); in practically every speech, blog post, and media interview, he articulates the future he is trying to create.
When talking about Tesla cars, he doesn't just talk about building better electric vehicles, but instead discusses how “the overarching purpose of Tesla Motors (and the reason I am funding the company) is to help expedite the move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy, which I believe to be the primary, but not exclusive, sustainable solution.”1
When he talks about SpaceX, he shares his vision for humanity in space, “Ultimately, the thing that is super important in the grand scale of history is, are we on a path to becoming a multi-planet species or not?… If we're not, that's not a very bright future. We'll just be hanging out on Earth until some eventual calamity claims us.”2
And when he introduces a new product – for example, a Tesla battery – he discusses ...
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