Join us on Tuesday, April 29, for the 2025 HBR Leadership Summit

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Join HBR event on Tuesday, April 29, for the 2025 Harvard Business Review Leadership Summit, our full-day virtual event designed to help you deliver on your mission and bottom line. From interviews with top CEOs to mini-masterclasses with some of the world's best management thinkers, you'll get expert advice on how to navigate increasingly complex markets, upskill and manage an AI-enabled workforce, balance the needs of all your stakeholders—and much more.



A leader's ability to inspire depends on how well they play three key roles: visionary, exemplar, and mentor. Here's how to embody each one:

Visionary. People rally around leaders who provide meaning, purpose, and optimism. Your message should be big-picture, values-driven, and simple yet vivid. For example, you might say, "Make our customers smile" instead of "Make our customers happy." Repetition strengthens clarity, so communicate your vision often. A useful exercise? List your five core values, rank them, and use them to guide your messaging.

Exemplar. Inspiring leaders are calm and courageous, facing danger and protecting others from it. They are also authentically passionate, espousing their ideas and principles with conviction—while also embodying them. Those emotions and behaviors are infectious, encouraging your team to follow your lead and become more resolute, brave, excited, and driven.

Mentor. True leaders elevate others. Delegate responsibility, listen deeply, and give credit when it's due. Try a simple exercise where you consider a colleague's perspective—what motivates them? What challenges them? Good mentoring requires understanding that different people have different needs, and really listening to what those needs are.

Read the article: "What Sets Inspirational Leaders Apart," by Adam D. Galinsky

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