So, you’ve got feedback that you need to be more strategic leader…now what?
It’s a common piece of performance management feedback that leaders or would-be leaders get. It’s also one that is difficult for those receiving it to really know what it means.
There can be many reasons a leader is perceived as not being strategic. Let’s assume you have already covered the basics such as making sure you fully understand your organisation’s strategy and the role you play in it; most leaders I coach feel they already have clarity on this.
Before we dive into some specific challenges leaders have on being strategic, there are a few limiting beliefs about strategy that you might want to challenge your mindset, just in case these apply to you.
The 3 major limiting beliefs on strategy are:
- Strategy is only for MBA graduates. That’s simply not true. No one is born strategic, it’s a learnt skill that’s available to everyone with a bit of practice.
- Strategy relies on lots of data analysis. It doesn’t really. Data tells us what has happened in the past, which we extrapolate forward to predict the future, but that only works if the future is a replica of the past. Generally, it’s not.
- Strategy is best done by an external consultant. It isn’t. I facilitate strategy development, I don’t “do strategy”. Why? Because the people in your organisation know far more about what would be a great strategy for your organisation than an external consultant ever does.
Now that those common limiting beliefs are out of the way let’s look at more specific challenges that may be relevant to you to become a more strategic leader. These are some of the challenges I have seen leaders regularly face when it comes to being more strategic:
1. A high need for certainty
Strategy is always uncertain. However, there are 2 points to note here: firstly, if you are not being strategic then you are probably doing a lot of planning instead. Planning feels very comforting because you set actions against timelines that you feel you can control. But it’s a false comfort because those actions are only internally controlled, the external impact (market reaction, customer behaviours, competitors etc) are completely outside of your control. So, you are not really creating control and certainty, just a misleading illusion of it.
Strategy will not give you control either, but once you have a strategy you can monitor all your assumptions to give you the assurance that you are heading in the right direction or adjust if this is not so. In order to be more strategic, you will need to let go of the need for certainty that you feel comes with planning.
The next time you feel compelled to create a detailed plan try a shorter agile plan instead. Consider a test, learn, adapt approach, rather than decide, plan, execute.
2. An internal focus
Strategy is about customers. To increase your strategic thinking, you need to shift focus from your internal capabilities to a focus on customers. You need to be constantly exploring what customers want, how they are behaving, and what they might want in future. Don’t just rely on the big customer data sets, consider the single customer who does something differently to the norm and consider your non-customers. Ask why customers do and don’t buy from you. What would have to be different for a non-customer to become a customer? What assumptions are you making about what customers value? How might their needs be changing? Why are some customers about to leave you? If your customers are internal (for example if you are in an internal function) then you have 2 customers: internal and external. Consider them both, all the time.
3. A focus on the past
Strategy is a theory of the future. This can be a challenge for leaders who tend to base their decision-making and confidence on evidence from the past. Practise asking yourself “what might happen” and “what else is possible”. See if you can catch yourself doing things because you have always done them that way (based on past success) and try a different approach. This can all be practised in low-risk situations which you can ramp up as you get more comfortable with making decisions based on theories of the future rather than data from the past.
4. Saying YES to too many things (aka not saying NO enough)
Strategy is about focusing on a selected, coordinated set of choices, and the flip side of this is not doing all the things that are outside of these choices. There are various reasons we might say yes to too much: perfectionism (“it’s only going to be right if I do it myself”), the need for approval (“I won’t be approved of if I say no; being nice is saying yes”), dependency (“I’ve been told to do it so I will just do it without questioning”).
The busy manager is not a strategic leader. If you find yourself constantly busy with too much on your plate, I can almost guarantee you are not being strategic. Take a long hard look at what’s on your to-do list and say no to things that are neither urgent nor important (i.e., not strategic), delegate a large proportion of the rest and leave yourself with time to focus on strategy and coaching your team.
5. A lack of practice, as a team
The key here is that strategic thinking takes practice, and it’s a team practice. Strategy is not a solo activity. Run a team strategy session; just getting familiar with the tools and techniques of strategy will be helpful to flex your own strategic muscles, and you give your team the gift of helping them understand strategic thinking too.
A need for certainty, an internal focus, a focus on the past and saying yes to too much are pretty common, but they are detractors from being a strategic leader. Coaching, and practice, on being comfortable with uncertainty, an external focus and being future-orientated will go a long way towards increasing your comfort and ability in strategic thinking.
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