When Pope Leo XIV blessed the Sagrada Família’s tallest, gravity-defying tower on June 10, he took a moment to remember not only the church’s architect, Antoni Gaudí, but also the many people – workers and funders alike – who have made its ongoing construction possible over the last 140 years.

“Together with Gaudí, as we commemorate the centenary of his death, we remember and give thanks this evening to all the supporters and benefactors, the artists and the workers who cooperated in the construction of an architectural masterpiece, which is also an eloquent catechesis made of stones, colors and light,” the Pope said in his homily at the Sagrada Família during his tour of Spain.

As a business school professor, I have written case studies on the Sagrada Família, and regularly take students and executive programme participants there.

It may seem like an unlikely place to take business executives: a mammoth, wildly ambitious project whose creator died with just a fraction of work completed, and whose progress has been derailed by a century and a half of Barcelona’s tumultuous history, from fires and civil war to funding shortages and debate over what to do with a singular undertaking so intimately associated with its architect.

Certainly, Gaudí is not a conventional leader, nor is the Família a conventional church. Yet both offer a number of timeless lessons in leadership, particularly when it comes to vision, mission and innovation.

How to craft a vision

Gaudí’s vision for Sagrada Família did not come to him as a bolt from the blue. It was the product of years of observation and reflection.

Gaudí took over the Sagrada Família project in 1883, inheriting plans to build a........

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