Great leaders always are both highly visionary and highly practical
[Great leaders] Their vision enables them to see beyond the immediate. They can envision what's coming and what must be done. Leaders possess an understanding of how:
Mission provides purpose -- answering the question, Why?
Vision provides a picture -- answering the question, What?
Strategy provides a plan -- answering the question, How?
At the same time, leaders are practical enough to know that vision without action achieves nothing. They make themselves responsible for helping their followers to take action.
Your example
Every time I read a management or self-help book, I find myself saying, “That’s fine, but that wasn’t really the hard thing about the situation.” The hard thing isn’t setting a big, hairy, audacious goal. The hard thing is laying people off when you miss the big goal. The hard thing isn’t hiring great people. The hard thing is when those “great people” develop a sense of entitlement and start demanding unreasonable things. The hard thing isn’t setting up an organizational chart. The hard thing is getting people to communicate within the organization that you just designed. The hard thing isn’t dreaming big. The hard thing is waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat when the dream turns into a nightmare.
[Oprah Winfrey said in one of the interview she was giving :]
"There’s a wonderful phrase by Maya Angelou, from a poem that she wrote called “To our grandmothers”, that she says:
“I come as one, but I stand as ten thousand.”
So when I walk into a room, particularly before I have something really challenging to do, or I’m going to be in a circumstance where I feel I’m going to be you know, up against some difficulties. I will literally sit, and I will call on the 10,000."
Note : the actual phrase in the poem is : "I go forth along, and stand as ten thousand."