Strategic Leadership Starts with Strategic Thinking
Who are strategic leaders? There’s two answers to this question.
First, strategic leaders are specific people—the executives who sit at the top of an organization. They comprise members of the board of directors, the top management team (TMT), and senior leaders who head major business units, functions, or geographies.
Second, strategic leaders are those managers who think and act strategically. They are known not buy their position, but rather their behavior. They, too, are strategic leaders but by action, not title.
Many leaders aspire to be both—more strategic in their day-to-day work as well as senior leaders rising in their organization. We assert that focusing on the latter—becoming a more strategic leader behaviorally—is the best path to achieving the former—a strategic leadership post. So how does one get from the backroom to the boardroom? According to the authors of Becoming a Strategic Leader: Your Role in Your Organization’s Enduring Success there are three individual skills that are required:
Strategic thinking. The intellectual and social process skills needed to enable a broad understanding of the organization and how it fits (and evolves) with its environment.
Strategic acting. The actions necessary to drive the organization toward its desired future destination despite challenges, obstacles, setbacks, and uncertainties that arise along the way.
Strategic influence. The behaviors needed to gain commitment from stakeholders, both inside and outside the organization, to compel progress toward strategic outcomes.
While each of the three are essential, strategic acting and influence will be of limited value if they are taken absent effective strategic thinking.
Senior leaders are expected to have the conceptual skills needed to not only survive, but thrive in the fast moving VUCAD world—volatile uncertain, complex, ambiguous, and digital. Anyone who wants to ascend the corporate latter will need to be a proven strategic thinker well before they step into those roles.
If you’d like to learn more about strategic thinking, check out the Twelve Skills brief Mastering Strategic Thinking.
Serious about improving your strategic skills? Get the companion guide to the Twelve Skills book the Twelve Skills Strategic Thinking Workbook. Packed with thought provoking activities, hands on exercises, and bonus material, it’s a proven way to boost your knowhow. Best of all, IT’S FREE!
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