Therefore, educating yourself about the characteristics you want to embody will help you become a better leader. Skills for leading at the strategic level are more complex than those for leading at the tactical and operational levels, with skills blurring at the seams between those levels. Much of my work with my clients is with their strategic thinking, and the work always starts with “What is strategic thinking is your organisation?”   Very often, there is a remarkable lack of clarity about what strategic thinking actually is: Do you have a pocket of excellence in your organisation which, if replicated throughout, would set your business in a league of its own? In the book, Becoming a Strategic Leader, Richard Hughes and Katherine Beatty define strategic thinking as “the collection, interpretation, generation, and Practice humility not only with other people, but with your planning and processes. Having a collaborative approach to leadership is powerful because it naturally creates transparency in your organization. All leaders, but particularly those beholden to regulatory compliance, should be clear about plans, progress, and results. I’ve made the point that the strategic thinker is disciplined and somewhat neurotic (in a good way). You definitely want to be aware of issues (as no good leader has their head in the sand), but you must also take the time to recognize things that are going well with your strategy and celebrate successes. If you’re connected to your team and genuinely interested in collaborating with them, they will know what you’re thinking and vice versa. One way to improve collaboration is to create some small projects and put others in charge. You may have a clear vision of what you’re trying to accomplish, but if you can’t convey it to your team or colleagues, it will be almost impossible to carry out. Strategic planning, then, is the roadmap from where we are to where we want to be, the answer having appeared in our thinking process. Honesty is always the best policy, but strategic leadership often requires you to be tactful. Following the motto of “honesty is the best policy” generates trust within your organization. This behavior makes you more “human” and relatable; it’s also simply a best practice to empower and reward others instead of acting like the smartest person in the room (even if you are!). 1901 N. Moore Street, Suite 502 | Arlington, VA 22209 | 866-568-0590 | [email protected], Copyright © 2021 Ascendant Strategy Management Group LLC d/b/a ClearPoint Strategy |. Empathetic leaders gain the respect of employees and are more likely to successfully execute the organization’s strategies because they know exactly what it takes to get the job done. Wisdom in the context of strategic leadership is defined as the ability to take the right action at the right time. These strategic thinking skills are vital. More specifically, your team needs to be aligned and on-board with your strategic objectives and goals to be successful. It means you try to understand your team’s problems by walking in their shoes and seeing things from their perspective. These provide you with a window of opportunity that will not be open for ever. Characteristics of a strategic leader include being open to change and “left-field” thoughts, because that is precisely what will give you a competitive advantage. It could be pocket-size or wallet-size, or printed and put in a notebook. Is there something going on in your business, your industry or the economy that you don’t understand? For example, a product team may need a certain amount of time to properly test the UX, or a sales team may need an updated CRM system to hit their revenue goals. A technology they don’t have? To sharpen that skill, you may want to sharpen your internal reporting process. If an idea or process is foreign to you, assess it and look at the benefits of implementing something new. Remember that you may not be the most innovative person in the room—but you still need to foster innovation amongst your team. A final thing to consider is that strategic leadership is different for everyone. When you show that hard work is being done on every level of the organization, you prove your commitment and earn the respect of your team as a leader. From there, you can begin implementing this with bigger projects and initiatives. But you must also add commitment to the mix of strategic leadership qualities, because passion doesn’t always get the job done. Strategic thinking is about leadership and management that … Top leaders should push power downward, across the organization, empowering people at all levels to make decisions. the red and yellow items in their scorecard. e Strategic thinking is defined as a mental or thinking process applied by an individual in the context of achieving a goal or set of goals in a game or other endeavor. Nimbly adjusting and adapting to current business or economic environments is a valuable skill to foster. The answer to that question helps an executive drive organizational strategy through various ways to maximize results in minimal time, maintain a bird’s-eye view of the big picture and ensure the team aligns its goals with those of the organization. Being forthright about your successes, failures, and reasoning for choosing certain strategies and goals over others will earn the respect of your team. Aside from the interpersonal benefits, empathy is also a practical tool. A talent? Using the three-part strategic thinking definition and four important elements of strategic leadership, here is the workshop’s content: Strategic Thinking Focuses on What Matters. As a cognitive activity, it produces thought. In order to understand what the strategic framework looks like in action, you need to dissect it. Somehow, the idea of ‘strategy’ and ‘strategic thinking’ has developed a mystic aura. With strategic thinking skills, managers and high-potentials are able to better allocate time and resources toward current needs while anticipating and … In addition, Strategic leadership development is critical for any leader. Strategic leadership is truly a mixture of skill, behaviors, and perspectives. This essentially means looking at the definition of strategy and how it can be linked to leadership. Being honest isn’t always easy, because it requires communicating both the good and the bad. These two factors are indeed critical components that are crucial for growth and success of any business organization. From our experience, strategic leaders demonstrate the following: Curiosity for external trends, patterns, how money is made, and about people SauteePan-Strategic leadership characteristics include the ability to develop big picture thinking and develop strategic vision. The collaboration eventually led the duo to further explore the nature of strategic leadership and to the development of their new book, Leading with Strategic Thinking, released in April 2015. Strategic thinking is the discipline of noticing and responding to potential game-changers in order to have the advantage even in an uncertain and chaotic business environment. Try our Executive Dashboard and become an expert. Without a doubt, being an effective communicator is a top attribute of a strategic leader. Adapt your strategic leadership style to fit your role, your company, and your working situation. If this process runs smoothly, you can help keep your team on the right track toward strategic success! This will allow you to regularly ask your colleagues and employees where they fit in on the strategy and how they regularly contribute. This is the natural propensity of some personalities and also shows up in terms of tests of brain dominance. Distribution of responsibility gives p… Are you trying to realise a particular vision for your business? It requires an unbiased, strategic approach to problem solving. Is it the ability to envision a future different from the current situation? In order to innovate you need to utilize data-driven decision making. Strategic leaders need this kind of wisdom to successful foster school growth. He believes that those results can be delivered if only he and his team think about it cleverly and execute their strategy diligently. The strategic thinker is the quintessential problem solver – he believes that for every challenge there is a response that will turn that challenge to their advantage. They are not training up the next generation of leaders to take over after current workers retire. Keep in mind that some leaders conduct strategy review meetings and only focus on the problems—i.e. In reality, though, they are more like two sides of the same coin. Municipalities, nonprofits, healthcare facilities, and other similar organizations are under the most pressure to exhibit transparency. Do you have a sales team that really cooks? Having different points of view ultimately strengthens your organization, but it’s a reality that can be challenging to manage in the short term. www.hr.ufl.edu/training © University of Florida By understanding some of the components involved, a leader can begin to create conversations around critical issues and foster a shared understanding of who we are, where we are going, and how we’ll get there. Click To Tweet. They see potential danger around every corner and they execute strategies that mitigate the dangers. Soon you may find that everyone carries their own copy of the strategy map! Humility is one of the most respected strategic leadership qualities. Strategic thinking boils down to one simple question: What is the desired outcome? 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