> What’s being described is a classic Visionary - spontaneous, jumps around and can be distracting, yes - but crucially, is also an amazing innovator and motivator of people.
The description reads more like someone who is simply high energy and brings a lot of enthusiasm and positivity. I don't see much suggestion that the person is necessarily very Visionary:
> [company founder] has a more intuitive, spontaneous style, often shines brightest in a crisis, is allergic to checklists
There is a lot of value in having leaders who are positive, high energy, and can motivate teams. I've come across a few leaders who had boundless energy, enthusiasm, and enough charisma to lead teams into any effort. However, the ones without the right amount of execution ability ultimately just led us to slosh around doing a lot of half-useless work in a high-energy manner.
These days I'm more cautious when I meet someone with abnormally high charisma and energy levels. I probe more for knowledge and experience in executing. Many of the highest charisma leaders I've come across haven't had the abilities to back it up, but they've used their charisma and charm to work their way into the right companies and right meeting rooms at the right time to become associated with success.
Of the successful startups I've worked at, I can think of several people who were charismatic, confident, high-energy, but didn't really contribute to execution. Even worse, some of them detracted from progress as they used their charisma to redirect efforts in self-serving ways, or spent their time pushing podcasts, building social media profiles, and attending conferences instead of working for the company.