You may have found yourself pondering this question, especially if you often find yourself embroiled in operational tasks, unable to lift your head up long enough to start thinking about what’s around the corner. You may feel like you’re constantly firefighting, leaving you little room to show your strategic capability. This might leave you feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, and unfulfilled.
Let’s explore the concept of strategic leadership, and discover a few practical ways to help you to become the leader you want to be.
First, let’s define “strategic”
In some organisations, the concept of “being strategic” is a bit hazy – which isn’t helpful if you’re receiving feedback like “I need you to be more strategic”! According to this excellent HBR article, being a strategic leader as someone who…
- … scans the horizon for future challenges and opportunities
- … can interpret complex and often contradictory information
- … can challenge how things stand in their organisation, even if they find this personally uncomfortable
- … can take all the above and make decisions, turning into clear direction for their team, involving them appropriately, and empowering them to achieve their goals.
It involves research, reflection, benchmarking, engaging with stakeholders, networking… the list goes on. All of this takes time, which is difficult to find if you’re regularly finding yourself embroiled in operational matters.
Common barriers to being a more strategic leader
Let’s explore some of the common roadblocks that I see with my clients, which may be hindering your journey to operating more strategically. Do any of these resonate with you?
1. You lack clear direction
Perhaps there’s been a leadership gap, or an enormous curveball that’s thrown the current strategy out of the window. Fair enough. But more often, I hear of organisations where the strategy isn’t being effectively communicated, leading to confusion. No one seems to know what’s going on, so you carve out their own roles and goals and hope for the best. The lack of overarching plan may mean your team is particularly dependent on you for advice on tactical issues.
Where can you get clarity on direction? If it’s not possible in the short-term, try to establish when you’ll get clarity.
2. You just can’t let go
Delegating can be a challenge for some leaders. You may feel that you should handle all the (difficult) tasks – you’re paid more than your team, after all. Perhaps you’ve had a previous experience of feeling overwhelmed and pressured at work, and you’ve promised yourself you’ll never let your team feel that way. Perhaps you lack confidence in your team’s capability, and you’re not ready to let them fly solo yet. How many times have you heard the phrase “It’s quicker for me to do it myself”?
However, when you resist giving responsibility to your team, you can create a cycle where your team misses out on learning opportunities, leaving them unfulfilled and disempowered.
The good news is you don’t have to delegate everything all at once! What small things could you hand over, and what impact would that have for carving out strategic thinking time?
3. You need to re-communicate your identity
If you've been recently promoted, people might still see you in your old role, and you might struggle to communicate your new responsibilities. While showcasing your expertise is natural, clinging to your previous identity can hinder your success in your new role.
Perhaps you’ve not personally made that transition into your new role yet. After all, you were promoted for your expertise and helpfulness – why wouldn’t you want to continue showcasing this? And how difficult is it to say “No” to people?!
But all the time you’re investing in your old role and identity is robbing you of the opportunity to create success in your new role. So, how can you create a plan to phase out your old role and responsibilities as quickly as possible?
4. Operational excellence is your comfort zone
Perhaps you were promoted for your operational skills, but now you're doubting your ability to live up to your reputation in a more strategic role. So, you remain entrenched in operational responsibilities, whilst trying to carve out time for strategic thinking on your work-from-home days. And because, deep down, it’s nice to feel needed (or perhaps you get major FOMO), you turn up to meetings you’re not required at, check in on projects that are running perfectly smoothly without you, and leave yourself with very little time to get your thinking cap on.
If operating strategically is outside of your comfort zone – that’s perfectly normal! We all start somewhere. What support can you get from peers, mentors, coaches, professional bodies, and good quality books, websites, and journals?
5. You want it all, or not at all!
Some leaders experience “all-or-nothing” thinking when it comes to being strategic. If they get dragged into operational matters occasionally (or even frequently), it can be tempting to think “I’ll never get time to be more strategic”, and give up entirely. How would it be if you could accept that there’ll always be operational matters vying for your attention, but you have clarity on which ones are worth getting involved in, and you feel comfortable saying “no” to others, and instead empowering your team to manage them?
Remember, this isn’t about being 100% better tomorrow. Lasting change rarely appears overnight. Reflect on what you’ve read here, and whether any of these things resonate. Even small adjustments can lead to significant progress.
Ask yourself how satisfied you are with the current circumstances on a scale of one to ten. Why is this? What would it take to turn it up just one notch? How can you make that happen?
If any of this has resonated with you and you’d like to discuss how coaching may support you, please get in touch for a free, no-obligation chat.
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