Being a strategic leader means having the vision to set a forward-thinking strategy as well as the skills to execute it successfully It’s more than just making plans – it’s being able to strategically motivate a team in the right direction
Developing strategic leadership capabilities is essential for anyone in an executive or management role. But you can also boost your strategic skills and mindset to thrive in roles across an organization
In this comprehensive guide, we will explore what strategic leadership entails why it’s so vital and most importantly, the key skills and traits you need to become a more strategic leader yourself.
What is Strategic Leadership?
Strategic leadership refers to a manager’s ability to anticipate, envision, maintain flexibility, think strategically, and work with others to initiate changes that will create a viable future for an organization.
Strategic leaders have the following abilities:
- Analyze the competitive environment and industry trends
- Set a vision for the organization’s future direction
- Formulate strategies for achieving long-term goals
- Execute strategic plans successfully
- Adapt strategies and objectives when needed
Being a strategic leader is about finding opportunities and solving problems creatively to propel your organization forward.
Why Strategic Leadership Matters
The success and competitiveness of a company down the road depends heavily on strategic leadership in the present. Some key reasons it’s so important:
- Provides direction and purpose during times of rapid change
- Drives innovation and progress
- Unites the organization behind common goals
- Allows quicker anticipation and response to external issues and opportunities
- Positions the organization for sustained growth and success
Without strategic leadership, organizations become stagnant and reactive. Strategic leaders empower teams to be proactive.
8 Key Skills of Strategic Leaders
Developing strategic leadership capabilities requires excelling in these vital skill areas:
1. Vision and Foresight
Having a vision for the future is crucial. Strategic leaders define a forward-thinking vision and strategy that propels the organization in an ambitious new direction. This vision provides purpose and ignites innovation.
2. Systems Thinking
Strong strategic leaders have the ability to analyze systems and relationships holistically. They consider second and third order consequences of actions. This big picture, interconnected perspective guides strategic decision making.
3. Problem Solving
Solving organizational problems requires the creativity and critical thinking skills to find opportunities where others see obstacles. Strategic leaders arrive at innovative solutions.
4. Influencing and Inspiring
Bringing others along requires flexing influence and inspiration muscles. Strategic leaders motivate and align their teams around the future vision and strategy.
5. Driving Change
Achieving the organization’s strategic vision demands driving change at times. Strategic leaders initiate and facilitate changes needed to enact their strategy.
6. Agility and Adaptability
In dynamic, rapidly evolving environments, rigid adherence to plans is dangerous. Strategic leaders remain agile, adapting strategies when conditions or assumptions change.
7. Results Orientation
While vision and strategy are crucial, strategic leaders maintain a results focus. They ensure strategies deliver tangible outcomes and make course corrections when needed.
8. Decisiveness
The ability to act decisively is critical. Strategic leaders make tough calls quickly when opportunities arise or crises unfold. Analysis paralysis is not an option.
Cultivating these skills takes time, but will serve you throughout your career.
5 Key Attributes of Successful Strategic Leaders
Along with skills, some inherent traits and tendencies shared by great strategic leaders include:
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Curiosity – Passionately interested in ideas, the future, and ongoing learning. Open to input and dialogue with others.
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Intuition – Able to consider limited information and make instinctive judgments. Trusts their gut feel at times.
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Creativity – Sees situations and problems in new ways. Comfortable with ambiguity and complexity when innovating.
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Foresight – Continually focused on the future direction of industries, markets, and consumer needs. Anticipates change.
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Courage – Willing to take bold action despite risk and uncertainty. Comfortable making difficult decisions that challenge convention.
You can practice and improve upon skills, while also tapping into your natural strategic inclinations.
How to Develop Strategic Leadership
Becoming a more strategic leader takes time and consistent effort through:
Learn continuously – Read, research, take courses on strategy, innovation, and leadership. Absorb new perspectives.
Observe other leaders – Notice what approaches make certain leaders successful. Emulate their mindsets and behaviors.
Welcome challenges – Take on tough assignments dealing with ambiguity, high stakes, and complexity. Adapt and learn.
Ask probing questions – Ask why and what if frequently. Dig beneath the surface. Challenge assumptions.
Project into the future – Exercise your foresight muscles regularly. Imagine future scenarios and your role.
Engage with outsiders – Seek input from those with fresh outside perspectives. Allow them to challenge your thinking.
Reflect on decisions – Look back on outcomes and analyze why events happened as they did. Derive key learnings.
With a commitment to continually developing your strategic leadership abilities, you can help drive your organization toward a bold future. While not always easy, embracing this challenge can be incredibly rewarding.
Final Tips for Strategic Leaders
Here are a few final tips to help implement the strategic leader mindset:
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Set aside regular solo time to think strategically about the future. Don’t get trapped in day-to-day minutiae.
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Question and analyze every decision and initiative – does it ladder up to strategic goals?
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Recognize emerging trends early and consider how they impact your strategy and industry.
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Engage your team and other stakeholders in strategic direction setting. Listen and learn from them.
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Balance short and long-term goals so your view extends beyond this quarter.
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Be proactive rather than reactive. Drive change instead of responding belatedly.
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Communicate compellingly. Inspire others towards the future you envision.
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Maintain flexibility in strategies, adapting when circumstances change.
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Take calculated, decisive risks. Boldness and prudence together drive success.
Focusing on improving your strategic leadership capabilities will serve you and your organization incredibly well over the long term. With vision and commitment, you can achieve great things together.
The Differences Between Operational vs. Strategic Leaders
What makes strategic leadership different from leadership in general? If you’re a good leader, aren’t you in turn a strategic leader?
Effective strategic leaders — who have the ability to solve strategic leadership challenges — need different skills and perspectives than those in day-to-day operational leadership roles.
Operational leaders must master their functional area, meet short-term targets, and create stability for focused execution.
Strategic leaders, on the other hand, must focus on multiple facets of the business instead of ensuring success in a single area. They make decisions that position the business for the future, while meeting current demands. And, typically, strategic leaders are involved in creating significant organizational change. This difference means that the challenges faced by strategic leaders will also be different.
How to Be a Strategic Leader: 3 Keys
At CCL, we’ve studied hundreds of thousands of leaders as they navigate challenges of all kinds. Our research shows that the most strategic leaders do the following 3 things.
Begin with understanding the complex relationship between your organization and its environment.
Using that knowledge, you can then make decisions that facilitate your organization’s enduring success. Rather than try to solve challenges alone, leaders who think strategically invite internal and external experts to bring their wisdom to the table where it can be carefully considered and tested.
Individuals solving strategic leadership challenges don’t rely only on what has worked in the past, but are excited by opportunities to test entirely new approaches. Instead of waiting to be caught by surprise, they revel in scenario planning, learning about future trends, and imagining how they can influence the world to their advantage.
Leaders who endure through challenge after challenge are learners at their core, and they soak up knowledge from everywhere and everyone. They welcome new ideas, debates, and even controversy because they know that standing still is the surest way to be left behind. Rather than concentrate on consolidating power, they engage others in collaboration because the prize they seek is infinitely larger than whatever they currently possess.
Take decisive action consistent with the strategic direction of your organization — despite ambiguity, complexity, and chaos.
Solving strategic leadership challenges today means acting at the speed of change. It’s not helpful to sit in a conference room or on a Zoom call, spending months figuring out your digital strategy while the world is passing you by and doors to opportunities are closing. Leaders used to spend a long time solving challenges and developing strategies, with the idea that having a well-thought-through strategy was better than not having a strategy.
But leaders who think and act strategically are constantly learning and acting. They’re not afraid to re-strategize as they learn new things, and they’re careful to pay as much attention to the parts of the strategy that didn’t work as those that did. Things that don’t work as planned indicate that more learning is required.
Build commitment to the organization’s strategic direction by inviting others into the strategic process, forging relationships inside and outside the organization, and utilizing organizational culture and systems of influence.
There’s clear evidence that the majority of change efforts fail. While some change efforts are poorly conceived or badly timed, more change failures can be traced to leaders’ inability to influence key stakeholders inside and outside the organization to see the change through.
What’s clear is that new strategic leadership challenges will require new capabilities on the part of the organization. An adaptable organization is characterized by people jumping in where they’re needed without worrying about who’s getting the credit. Obstacles are cleared out of the way so that people who know what to do can do it.
In order to influence strategically, an organization needs a culture that supports collaborative problem solving and relies on high levels of commitment by people to do the right thing, unselfishly.
When leaders think, act, and influence strategically, they’re able to bring individuals across the organization together and build trust in the vision and the goals.
By recognizing opportunities for strategic leadership and finding ways to enact them to solve strategic leadership challenges, you can play a critical role in supporting your organization’s long-term success.
Moving from Operational Manager to Strategic Leader
What makes a good strategic leader?
As a strategic leader, you must be able to offer guidance that allows people to make sense of the encompassing world and collective challenges, and also explain how the team as a whole will face them. Strategic leadership is broad in scope. Strategic decisions impact areas outside your own functional area, business unit, or even the organization.
What is strategic leadership?
Strategic leadership is change-oriented. The strategic leader is often a driver of organizational change. The impact of their work cascades or ripples throughout the organization. Effective operational leadership doesn’t necessarily institute significant organizational change.
How can you become a strategic leader?
We’ll examine the top skills and qualities associated with senior-level leadership, as well as how you can become a strategic leader in your own right. Strategic leadership is when managers use their creative problem-solving skills and strategic vision to help team members and an organization achieve long-term goals.
What is strategic leadership style?
Strategic leadership happens when a leader shares a vision and goal with their team and inspires them to work together to reach it. A strategic leader often acts as the motivating force for an organization, letting individuals know their role in achieving the vision. This leadership style helps others have direction at all times. 1.
