What I Learned This Week: The Kite And The String

Every leader needs be able to be able to balance vision and execution

A few days ago I was listening to a podcast with Tom Bilyeu and Konstantin Kisin. The conversation wasn’t really focused on business but a few themes business themes came up and one of them was the idea of the kite and the string which is an amazing analogy.

As Tom mentioned during the interview, in business we typically have the visionary innovators and then we also have those who are good at executing and getting things done. Oftentimes the visionaries look at the executors and think “you should be a visionary like me” and the executors look at the visionaries and think “you should be an executor like me.” They both approach business from their own unique lens oftentimes not realizing that they need each other in order to be able to achieve their goals and see success.

Another way to think about this is that every leader needs to be able to have vision and execute, so the string and the kite are two sides for a single leader.

This is my preferred version and we see several great examples of this in today’s world including Elon Musk (although it can be argued he needs more control), Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Judy Marks (Otis Elevator), Barbara Humpton (Siemens U.S.), Deb Cupp (President Microsoft U.S.)