---
id: "counter-visionary-still-needed"
type: "contrarian-insight"
source_timestamps: ["§ Enrichment · Counter-Perspectives"]
tags: ["counter-perspective", "leadership-theory"]
related: ["contrarian-visionary-obsolete", "claim-co-creation-over-following", "prereq-traditional-leadership"]
source: "enrichment-overlay"
sources: ["tail2"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-tail2"
originDay: 2
articleStem: "hbr-tail-125-innovative-leader"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2025/05/what-makes-an-innovative-leader"
sourceTitle: "What Makes an Innovative Leader?"
---
# Counter: The Visionary Model Is Not Obsolete in All Contexts

**Counter-perspective (external, from enrichment):** The extraction's contrarian framing in [[contrarian-visionary-obsolete]] is strong, but the supporting sources do **not** prove that visionary leadership is broadly obsolete. They argue that innovation *at scale* requires *additional* capabilities beyond vision — especially collaboration and ecosystem-building [2][7] — not that vision is dispensable.

In practice, many organizations still need a **clear strategic direction** before co-creation can be productive. Read this as a corrective to [[claim-co-creation-over-following]]: co-creation is best understood as *additive* to vision, not a wholesale replacement. Relates to [[prereq-traditional-leadership]].