What Is A Strategic Leader And How To Adopt Strategic Thinking?
According to a study by Harvard Business Review, companies led by strategic leaders are 60% more likely to outperform their competitors. This bold approach to leadership involves setting clear objectives, anticipating market trends, and engaging employees in the decision-making process.
What does strategic thinking actually mean, and how do you balance this with supporting your team and executing the hands-on tasks also demanded of you? If you ‘think strategically’ does that automatically make you a strategic leader?
Strategic thinking is the creative and insightful analysis of the many variables that can influence a business and teams’ success and direction. I like to call it the ‘blue sky’ thinking, the shared vision that your team can get behind, or a runway that provides you, and your team the benefit of a longer lens.
A Strategic Thinker:
Has a longer-term view that takes in the wider system in which they operate, - the team, stakeholders, organisation or sector.
Can take a helicopter view from the day-to-day detail, and is able to identify emerging patterns, market trends, risks, customer behaviour, issues and opportunities.
A strategic thinker will be agile and able to adopt market trends, emerging technologies, and pivot when faced with competing priorities, commercial pressures, and be able to process how those elements influence business outcomes. Strategic thinkers can operate well in ambiguity and uncertainty, leading and galvanising the team to deliver both the short-term objectives and the long-term goals.
Strategic Leaders
Strategic thinking is not enough in itself to be an effective strategic leader. You also need to take others along on the journey with you, get their buy-in -communicate and share your vision, enable others to contribute their ideas, to better drive through impact and change.
This is your strategic vision - a call to action - evolved from insights, analysis and creativity, that inspires and motivates people. A strategic leader can align people behind a shared vision, or work towards a common goal. It is the ‘North Star’ that is the heartbeat of your team, or the paint brush you use to paint the commercial landscape.
A Strategic Plan
A good strategic leader will also develop a business, brand or team strategy, co- created with the team and the wider senior stakeholders. This is the plan that both links to your organization’s softer cultural values and supports the commercial objectives, and metrics.
Being a strategic leader is multi-faceted and involves not just thinking strategically, but also managing strategically, developing a strategy, and being able to influence and inspire others to support and implement strategic actions. Exceptional leaders are able to do marry all of this for the common good, and with a purpose led approach.
In fast paced organisations, how can leaders great the headroom to step back from operational tasks to create time to do this critical thinking that will create momentum, galvanise their teams and deliver results?
Practical Tips For Strategic Thinking
Simply put, strategic thinking needs focused time. This can be planned time in your diary to give time to reflection, planning and evaluation. One CEO had marked this in his calendar as ‘Coronation Street time’ – this is not to say he was actually watching Coronation Street (as someone looking at his diary thought - but were blocks of time in his diary, he had ring fenced for this crucial thinking time).
Crucially, strategic thinking does not have to happen in isolation, good strategic thinkers consult others, engage in collaborative discussion and hold creative team meetings that empower rather than just instruct their team. Strategic thinking can happen with teams, peers, colleagues, stakeholders, a supervisor, line manager, or clients.
Make strategic thinking a daily habit, rather than just limited to a team ‘away-day’ one that can add value to any situation or conversation to bring insight and innovation. Strategic leaders ask the crucial question or support the team to think with a fresh perspective. Instead of telling, or asking ‘What do we need to do?’ They first ask, ‘How should we think about this?’
When reflecting on a decision, action or plan consider the context and the environment within which it is taking place, the customers or people involved and the market, or competition. Then evaluate the future impact, changes, trends and past learnings.
Agility And Innovative
Strategic leaders are expectational strategic thinkers and whilst they have a strategy, they are also mindful that strategies guide and provide vision, but they are living, breathing approaches, that shouldn’t stifle teams, or business. Therefore, it’s important not to be wedded to your original strategy - be agile and responsive to constructive challenge, be ready to evolve it and adjust it, and be prepared to pivot if the situation, figures, or environment demands.
How can you make time for more strategic thinking in your role, business or entrepreneurship this month?
