Struggling With Being Strategic? You're Not Alone (But It Can Change!)

There are some things we don't enjoy and don't do well. Most executives secretly tell me strategic leadership falls into this category for them. And the evidence suggests they are not alone. A recent global study revealed that 90% of organizations are struggling to adapt quickly to market changes, and nearly half report poor coordination and ineffective strategic execution. One of the most difficult mindsets to change is a self-limiting belief that your current reality reflects your future reality. Just like death and taxes, change is not only possible but inevitable. Even passions and proficiency can change over time. A surprising truth is that you can actually learn to love being strategic, even if you don't understand it or enjoy it now. Strategic leadership creates organizational value by capitalizing on trends. Here is what you need to know to overcome self-doubt, unlock the strategic potential of your organization, and boost your career.

Challenges arising from the absence of organizational strategy

Research shows that only five percent of employees truly understand their company's strategy. When employees feel left out, they are less likely to support the company's goals, leading to disengagement and confusion about the company's direction. This lack of inclusion in strategic planning can lead to lower quality and creativity in the company's strategies and can contribute to a toxic culture that values certain groups or levels within the organization over others.

Three separate studies conducted by Zenger Folkman revealed that a leader's ability to think strategically is linked to career advancement. These studies, involving over 1300 leaders, found a significant correlation between executive leaders' promotions and their strategic thinking abilities.

Leaders who lack strategic thinking skills may struggle to align themselves and influence others, making it challenging to achieve success in both personal and professional endeavors. Focusing solely on immediate tasks can lead to falling behind, especially in a highly competitive market.

5 key strategic leadership competencies

Leaders must be able to navigate complex scenarios and a growing ambiguity. Critical thinking is essential for evaluating the core business factors and obstacles unique to a particular organization. It involves recognizing potential outcomes and having the foresight to guide both employees and the organization toward success.

Strategic thinking is a crucial aspect of effective leadership, encompassing five key competencies that are often overlooked and not fully developed within organizational leadership:

1. Scanning: This involves actively looking for subtle signals that may not seem significant at the moment but could have a profound impact on the business in the future. It requires a keen eye for detail and the ability to anticipate potential changes before they become apparent.

2. Visioning: Clarifying the organization's shared purpose and aspirations is essential for creating a cohesive and motivated team. Leaders must articulate a compelling vision that inspires others to work towards common goals, fostering a sense of unity and direction.

3. Reframing: This competency involves challenging existing assumptions and encouraging fresh perspectives on future possibilities. By questioning conventional wisdom and embracing innovative ideas, leaders can unlock new opportunities and drive transformative change within the organization.

4. Making sense: Engaging in a rigorous intellectual process of conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating data is critical for effective decision-making. Leaders must possess strong analytical skills to make sense of complex information and draw meaningful insights to inform strategic choices.

5. Systems thinking: Adopting a holistic approach to understanding how different components within a system interact and influence outcomes is essential for effective leadership. By recognizing the interconnectedness of various elements, leaders can identify leverage points and design interventions that yield desired results while minimizing unintended consequences.

The following video breaks down the often confused difference between strategic planning and strategic thinking.

Enhancing your strategic leadership proficiency and passion in 4 steps

We often dread tasks because we are not proficient. We feel slow or inefficient. The first three steps below cover practical ways you can improve your strategic thinking proficiency.

Leaders pressed for time don't like doing things that make them feel incompetent. Improving your proficiency will go a long way to increasing your passion for strategic leadership.

Step 1: Listening.

Start by noticing your strategic thinking proficiency and identify areas where you want to grow. Listen to yourself. Making sense requires critical thinking skills. Various psychometric leadership assessments can measure an executive's critical thinking capability. The Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA) is a valid leadership assessment based on recognizing assumptions, evaluating arguments, and drawing conclusions. For more information on the Watson-Glaser critical thinking appraisal, visit www.talentlens.com.

Life was not meant to be done alone. Too often, busy leaders fail to pause and consider how to leverage others to develop new habits. Whenever trying to create a new leadership habit, you can benefit significantly from deliberate practice and coaching feedback. Partnering with a qualified executive coach is proven to improve strategic leadership.

Step 2: Being far-sighted

Failure to consider future environmental changes can negatively impact your organization's ability to respond quickly to shifting markets. Leaders do not have to accept gambling with the company's future or rely only on reactionary planning approaches. Future-ready leaders can avoid costly mistakes by seeing what could be instead of constantly reacting at the last minute.

Being far-sighted utilizes practices from the field of strategic foresight. Strategic foresight involves looking beyond current experiences and scanning the horizon. This helps leaders identify signs of emerging trends in the margins to prepare for the future. Strategic foresight is a way of thinking critically, engaging, discovering, and acting.

Strategic foresight aims not to predict the future but to enable better decision-making and preparedness. It is a systemic view of change, considering the likely and possible realities. The use of predictive and prescriptive analytics promises improved strategic foresight.

Step 3: Being inclusive.

Leveraging multiple perspectives enhances strategic thinking, creativity, engagement, and strategy quality. Although achieving complete transparency and involving every possible stakeholder is questionably feasible, there is high value for inclusive leaders and organizations.

Before taking an inclusive approach to strategic thinking, senior leadership should come to an agreement on the process, participating stakeholders, and the organization's business vision, values, and mission. A generic, inclusive strategic thinking process typically engages others in ideation, refinement, and development.

Step 4: Reframing your MVP.

Words shape worlds. Before starting something you know you don't like doing, it's important to attempt to reframe your MVP:

• Motivation. Is your motivation about checking a box? Or is your motivation about making a difference? Reasons for strategic leadership matter. It is less likely that your efforts will lead to positive changes without a positive reason behind the change.

• Vision. How do you see the result of strategic thinking going? Is it leading to the best of what might? Or is what you see a list of all the things that could go wrong? When you anticipate a positive step in the journey, it provides a sense of purpose and direction to inspire your best and achieve success.

• Perspective. When the lens through which you perceive strategic thinking is off, your results will turn out poorly. Is your paradigm for strategic thinking that it will provide the best foundation for a healthy culture for your team, lead to business growth, and enhance your effectiveness? Or is your paradigm that it is best to avoid strategic thinking because you need to manage your image, and things will change anyway?

Not all work will become desirable. That's normal. It's healthy to learn to accept the things we can not change. That's when you want to explore delegation or work redesign based on strengths. But as you practice, you'll likely notice how you think about strategic leadership will change.

So, what is your real strategic leadership challenge?

References:

Amrollahi, A., & Rowlands, B. (2017). Collaborative open strategic planning: A method and case study. Information Technology & People (West Linn, Or.), 30(4), 832-852.

Bartell, R. (2011). Before the call: The communication playbook. Hudson House.

Bennis, W. G. (2008). Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality. Journal of Property Management, 73(5), 13.

Doolittle, J. (2023). Life-Changing Leadership: 10 Proven Principles That Will Elevate People, Profit, and Purpose. Organizational Talent Consulting.

Folkman, Z. (2021). Strategic thinking: The pathway to the top. Forbes.

Hughes, R., Beatty, K., & Dinwoodie, D. (2014). Becoming a strategic leader: Your role in your organization's enduring success. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.

Kaplan RS, Norton DP. The office of strategy management. Harv Bus Rev. 2005 Oct;83(10):72-80

Nwachukwu, C. E., Chladkova, H., & Olatunji, F. (2018). The relationship between employee commitment to strategy implementation and employee satisfaction. Trends Economics and Management, 12(31), 46-56.