Are you leading strategically?

It’s common practice:  we promote individual contributors to managers because they are great at what they do as managers and should, the thinking goes, be able to lead others in that same work.  This practice has many pitfalls, and yet we employ the same thinking when we promote good managers to broader strategic leader roles:  they are great at getting the work done through others, so they must be equally talented at assuming a strategic perspective, leading multiple functions, and creating cross organizational results,

 Yet, in our enthusiasm to promote, we don’t always articulate the new skills needed for a strategic leader.  Strategic leadership builds on the capabilities of successful management, but it is broader and requires the leader to develop new capabilities they didn’t necessarily demonstrate as a manager. 

The Center for Creative Leadership, a global expert in articulating the competencies of both managers and strategic leaders, has articulated the differences in the following ways: 

Managers: Act decisively, Execute plans, Manage change, Lead others, Build collaborations, Act with compassion and sensitivity, Take initiative, Take initiative.

Leaders: Demonstrate sound judgement, Create strategy, Lead change, Demonstrate a global orientation, Inspire commitment, Forge synergies, Act courageously.

To make this transition successfully, newly anointed strategic leaders must take stock in their own capabilities and let go of some while embracing others. Leaders who hold onto the behaviors that made them successful as managers won’t necessarily make the successful transition.

 Capabilities to let go of:

·        Jumping into and solving team obstacles alongside the team.

·        Deeply knowing what each person is working on and how to support them.

·        Developing the capabilities of individual team members. 

·        Delivering the quarterly results.

·        Developing new capabilities on the team.

Capabilities to acquire:

·        Influencing peer colleagues to enable ideas and cross-organization success.

·        Enabling team development with managers to ensure teams are broadening their skills.

·        Identifying organizational headwinds, inside and outside the organization, and devise mitigation strategies. 

·        Demonstrating informed judgement to champion new initiatives and retire outdated one with executive leadership. 

·        Keeping abreast of industry trends that may impact the business in the next 2 to 3 years.

Fundamentally, strategic leaders become successful by creating thinking time for themselves.  Highly effective leaders grew up solving problems:  they clarified needs and expectations, identified potential solutions, and implemented them within budget.  However, strategic leaders are no longer “doers.”  They must spend much less time doing the work and more time thinking about how the work should be done, efficiently, effectively, while minimizing costs and timelines.  They must let go of understanding (doing) the intricacies of the team’s work by relying on their managers and team members to get the doing done.

 Thinking activities are a significant orientation change for many leaders because they are primarily mental processes and cognitive activities, rarely resulting in immediate action.  Thinking includes planning, analyzing, imaging, decision-making, dreaming, contemplating, and reflecting. Further, thinking activities can’t be done in short spurts of time, say between meetings.  They require scheduled time when you are at your best.  Perhaps this is a quiet time during your commute, or when once you’re ready for work but haven’t jumped into the day’s agenda.  The point is:  schedule thinking time because it won’t just happen on its own. 

 Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn, suggested that, “the most successful leaders are not busy, they are focused.” Weiner suggests that thinking is essential for making wise decisions and achieving strategic outcomes.  Busy is not the same as being productive, and clarity of thought is more valuable than constant action. 

Are you interested in making the transition? I’m a retired Marine Corps officer, an executive coach, leadership team developer, and author. I am a strategist and counsel to senior executives.  She has coached dozens of senior executives across the world and has helped multiple cross-geography teams find their core purpose and focus for organizational success.  Interested? Reach out to me atcan be reached at janet@janetpolach.com or www.janetpolach.com or 612.500.7069.