It’s better to be wise than strong; intelligence outranks muscle any day. Strategic planning is the key to warfare; to win, you need a lot of good counsel.
– Proverbs 20:5-6 (The Message Translation)
In today’s competitive environment where it is a struggle to keep up with developments in every industry as well as in the technology and processes that drive operations, every organization that wants to remain on the cutting edge of effectiveness requires strategy. Strategy is the strength of battle. The quality of strategic thought that goes into an enterprise will ultimately determine its outcomes. I love to tell people who lament to me about how they have failed in some endeavors that they need to stop flogging themselves and go back and rethink their strategy or/and its implementation. Every failure in a project is a reflection of a deficiency in strategy. If you get the strategy right and stick to the process, the same venture will produce a different outcome. Principles only succeed when activated with the required strategy.
Strategy can be defined as the approach, policy, plan, or specific schema to follow in the pursuit of certain outcomes. Success cannot be assumed where strategy is lacking or deficient.
A strategic leader is therefore not just the one who spearheads the implementation of strategy. Strategic leadership is not a function. It is a mindset and therefore a thought pattern or an attitude. A strategic leader must first and foremost be a strategic thinker. Look at the whole of creation. It is easy to discern that a lot of strategic thinking must have been put by the Creator into its design, creation and sustenance. If you are a Christian, you will know that the entire plan of salvation, including the death and resurrection of Jesus, was a grand master plan, masterfully executed.
Strategic leadership is needed whenever the organization needs to evolve or execute plans to move the organization in the direction of both short-term and long-term objectives. Every area of the organization needs strategy to be effective. Product development, production processes, recruiting relevant and competent staff, developing a cohesive corporate culture, road to market, data collection and application etc., all require appropriate strategy. Even to succeed in our personal lives, we need an appropriate strategy to drive our conduct through the maze called life.
Whenever there is a goal to attain, there is a need for strategy. Secondly, strategy becomes essential when there is a dissonance between current reality and future expectations. The strategy that brought you this far can only take you this far. Furthermore, whenever there is a struggle or conflict between the day-to-day work demands, structure or processes and the overall vision, it is time to rethink strategy. Structure and systems are to serve strategy, not the other way round. When drudgery overtakes vision, the organization is headed for the pit. Strategic thinking and leadership also come to the fore when there is a need to move strategy beyond setting goals for direction to a process of transforming the organisation.
The primary focus of any strategy is the enduring success of the organization. Once a strategy has outlived its effectiveness, it is foolhardy not to change it.
Strategic leadership is broad in scope. In other words, it encompasses functions outside the leader’s core area or unit in the organization. It sees the interconnection and interdependence of people and processes throughout the organization. Simply put, the strategic leader is a systems thinker. In addition, strategic leadership requires focus on the future. It is concerned with evolving a far-reaching timetable that takes cognizance of short-term results with day-to-day management while retaining a long-term focus. The strategic leader is constantly interrogating the processes by asking questions like, “What are the things in our current management structure that can lead us to our future outcomes? What are we currently doing that can slow us down or prevent us from reaching our goals? What should we be doing more or less of? How effectively can we channel resources for maximum impact? Who are the kinds of people we need on the team if we desire transformation? Is our current technology becoming or already obsolete? How can we benefit from new technology and at what cost?”
While operational leaders focus on management of status quo, strategic leadership is focused on transformation. For the strategic leader, change is the only constant if you must retain your cutting edge in the marketplace.
Strategic leaders are characterized by resourcefulness. This speaks about the ability to harness inherent resources for corporate good and vision. It is about using what is available to produce what is required. While the operational leader is complaining about paucity or lack of resources to work with, the strategic leader focuses on how to achieve maximum results at minimum cost without compromising quality or jeopardizing the vision. This demands creativity and innovation.
As long as he has the characteristics identified above, a strategic leader can operate in any department.
A bank manager once shared with me how his branch almost lost one of their biggest depositors because of the attitude of the bank’s gateman. Dressed in a simple long overall and bathroom slippers, the customer came to the bank with a huge sum of money in a plastic bag with the intention of depositing it. When he asked to see the manager, the security man spoke to him dismissively and actually implied that he was a beggar who needed help. There and then, the man returned home and decided to close his account with the bank. It took a personal visit from the manager and several days of pleading before he changed his mind.
A strategic leader is cognizant of intrapersonal and intrafunctional relationships throughout the organization. This is what systems thinking is all about. Where others in the organization see snapshots and take most events personally, he sees the bigger picture, viewing everything he does in the context of its impact on others and their functions. Consequently, he finds it easy to check his ego at the door when he shows up at work. Let us consider some examples. A purchasing officer who is acutely conscious of the ripple effects of costs on production process and output and so recognizes the need to source for the best suppliers at reasonable cost. Or the HR manager who establishes an enhanced system of intraorganizational relational dynamics that focuses on placing relationships before rules, in recognition of the fact that the success of any organisation is dependent on its internal customers, the staff. For this reason, apart from personally developing a high level of emotional intelligence, he prioritises Training and Development as a way of enhancing the quality of life and performance of personnel. Or the Secretary or Administrative Assistant who knows the systemic damage that a delayed or badly prepared memo can do both to the department his boss heads and to the entire organization. Or an accountant who knows the impact of funding on the smooth running of the departments and processes of the organization. A strategic leader is always conscious of how his actions or tardiness affect the entire organisation and the effectiveness of its workflow.
To be continued.
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