It is fair to say as humans we either lead or follow in pursuit of what we want to achieve in life. In the corporate world, certain individuals play “leadership” roles and lead others. As leaders, it is their responsibility to influence the activities of individuals in their teams towards achieving key objectives & goals.
Most organizations have three defined leadership classifications – strategic leadership, organizational leadership, and action-orientated leadership. Each of these works in sync to ensure the organization functions smoothly to achieves its business objectives & grows over time.
In this article, I would like to focus on “strategic leadership”.
Strategic leadership consists of the most senior managers responsible for the broad, long-term strategic direction of an organization.
An effective strategic leader is loyal to the organization’s vision, exhibits judicious use of power, transparency, effective communication & problem-solving.
In simple words, strategic leadership is the intersection of the below few traits of leadership.
- Anticipate: Collect information from a wide range of sources both inside and outside your company’s industry or function to predict competitors’ moves and reactions to new initiatives or products. To see patterns of happenings. To collect, read & analyze data. To understand ‘what is’ from the data.
- Action: Make strategic decisions based on data collected, analysis & foresight. Also one must be ready to implement & execute ideas.
All have ideas. It’s very few who can roll them out and can actually bring it to life.
- Challenge: View and reframe a problem from multiple angles to understand its underlying causes.
- Open to Correct: One must be open to rolling back decisions made. At times some decisions don’t achieve the expected results. In such times its is important to mitigate all risks & losses from the decisions one makes.
- Innovate: As a strategic leader it is important to strive hard to build that unique value proposition for the organization. This will help the organization to successfully compete & outgrow the competition.
Strategic leadership is a continuous process. To become an effective strategic leader, one must understand their organization’s vision & mission.
This means fully grasping why the company exists, who its customers are and how exactly it can provide value for them etc. I hope this article helps you understand & successfully grow into an effective strategic leader. Until next stay safe & keep growing!