"Visionary people face the same problems everyone else faces; but rather than get paralyzed by their problems, visionaries immediately commit themselves to finding a solution"
About this Quote
Hybels frames “visionary” not as a mystical gift but as a behavioral reflex: problems arrive, panic tempts, action wins. It’s a neat rhetorical move, because it flatters the listener without letting them off the hook. You’re not being asked to become extraordinary; you’re being asked to respond differently, faster. The line divides the world into two camps - the paralyzed and the committed - and then quietly implies that paralysis is a choice, not a circumstance.
As a clergyman and leadership pastor, Hybels is importing a church-friendly version of late-20th-century American managerial optimism into spiritual language. The subtext is pastoral and pragmatic at once: doubt and fear are real, but dwelling there is a kind of unfaith. “Immediately commit” reads like a moral directive as much as a productivity hack. In Hybels’s ecosystem, vision is inseparable from stewardship: if you’ve been given responsibility (for a congregation, a family, a mission), hesitation starts to look like disobedience.
The intent also protects leaders from the romance of victimhood. By insisting that visionaries face “the same problems everyone else faces,” he rejects the myth that successful people have easier lives. That’s comforting to strugglers, but it’s also a recruitment pitch: leadership is open to you if you’ll adopt the posture.
The context matters, too. Hybels’s brand of evangelical leadership culture often treats institutions like organisms that must keep moving or die. In that world, “solution” isn’t just a nice outcome; it’s a theology of momentum. The risk is what the quote leaves out: sometimes the bravest response to a problem isn’t speed, but discernment, lament, or the humility to admit the “solution” is changing course entirely.
As a clergyman and leadership pastor, Hybels is importing a church-friendly version of late-20th-century American managerial optimism into spiritual language. The subtext is pastoral and pragmatic at once: doubt and fear are real, but dwelling there is a kind of unfaith. “Immediately commit” reads like a moral directive as much as a productivity hack. In Hybels’s ecosystem, vision is inseparable from stewardship: if you’ve been given responsibility (for a congregation, a family, a mission), hesitation starts to look like disobedience.
The intent also protects leaders from the romance of victimhood. By insisting that visionaries face “the same problems everyone else faces,” he rejects the myth that successful people have easier lives. That’s comforting to strugglers, but it’s also a recruitment pitch: leadership is open to you if you’ll adopt the posture.
The context matters, too. Hybels’s brand of evangelical leadership culture often treats institutions like organisms that must keep moving or die. In that world, “solution” isn’t just a nice outcome; it’s a theology of momentum. The risk is what the quote leaves out: sometimes the bravest response to a problem isn’t speed, but discernment, lament, or the humility to admit the “solution” is changing course entirely.
Quote Details
| Topic | Vision & Strategy |
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