How to Spot “Insighteers”

“Insighteers” are in demand, help to build the culture of creativity, clarify vision and inject passions to lead changes effortlessly.

Insight is the ability to perceive clearly or deeply penetration. It is about penetrating and often sudden understanding of a complex situation or problem. The gap between knowledge and insight is about the depth of understanding. Because knowing something is not equal to understanding it, understanding it doesn’t mean you can communicate and coach it effectively. Besides understanding, it is also important to co-create the new knowledge for spurring creativity. The portmanteau word “Insighteers” (Insightful Pioneers) is to describe the people who have both insight and courage to ride learning curve faster than others, dare to be the first to do something and take the unique path to lead change boldly. “Insighteers” are in demand because the modern businesses and digital societies need to understand things deeper, explore the better way to do something, and lead change courageously. But more specifically, who are “insighteers,” and how to spot them to drive change and make a leap of digitalization?

Transformative digital leaders are insighteers: Too often people may take the easy path, think and work at a superficial level or blindly follow others rather than spend the time on the understanding of what is going on underneath. Insight is the understanding of a specific cause and effect in a specific context, and the root cause of a problem, or the core issues of a situation which leads to resolution. The digital leapfrog leaders are at their very heart visionaries and “insighteers” who also have determination, dedication, motivation, passion, and make a significant influence on driving changes. Developing changeability takes effort and time. Changeability gives you confidence because you know you are able to positively adapt to any given situation for accepting, embracing, and catalyzing changes. What an “insighteer” most often does is to instill drive, passion, and enthusiasm, expand knowledge, harness skills, build capabilities, shape the culture of creativity and inspire others to become more innovative and lead change confidently.

Visionary entrepreneurs are insighteers: Entrepreneurship is often defined as risk-taking, and being innovative. The heart of entrepreneurship is about changes because the digital era means the faster pace of changes. Visionary entrepreneurs are "insighteers" because their work continues to move forward and, in turn, is profitable to self and others; they think differently from those who are traditional thinkers. They see the old problems from every direction and find new solutions from different angles. Visionary leaders dare to take calculated risks for overcoming challenges. There is the friction to changes, but over the long haul, everyone from the top down sees the benefits. Individuals and teams are rewarded for taking calculated risks. Visionary leaders can see connections, perceive the new paradigm, and predict the trend. They are like guiding light to lead the organization in the right direction. Many entrepreneurs taste risk as bitter experience and show resilient to recover. True accountability focuses on learning to do things differently, rather than punishment. Insightful intrapreneur-leaders are systematic and good at calculating the risk. Intrapreneur leaders often have balanced viewpoints to perceive success and failure objectively, such mental toughness will help an organization become more resilient, and nurture the culture of risk-tolerance.

Innovation navigators are insighteers: Due to the increasing pace of changes, innovation can happen anywhere across the organization and its ecosystem. Innovation comes with a foresight to envision a need that others overlook or ignore and a willingness to forge ahead to satisfy visions, in spite of a risk of failure. Digital innovation has a broader spectrum and hybrid nature, it is the incremental improvement and radical innovation continuum. When looking at business/organizations, the most powerful innovation navigation system involves tapping the organizational ecosystem with people-centricity for the collective perspectives/insights of those who makeup and know intimately their parts of the system. In dynamic digital business environments, there must be a capacity to respond to new and emerging opportunities and to create new opportunities. Innovation navigators are the critical role to envision the future trends and capture potential innovation opportunities. The evolution of innovation only exists in the more open environments that create insights, take advantage of all sources of creativity in a more open way and leap innovation management to the next level.


Organizations no matter large or small, all face the unprecedented change, uncertainty, and accelerated business dynamic. Therefore, “insighteers” are in demand, help to build the culture of creativity, clarify vision, inject passions to lead changes, apply information and technology in new and innovative ways to stay ahead of competition and industry and lead digital paradigm shift effortlessly.

Posted in: Digital Master,Future of Leadership,Global Perspective,Hybrid,Leadership Master