Effective strategic leaders has the ability to solve strategic leadership challenges. To be a effective strategic leader they need different skills and perspectives than those in day-to-day operational leadership roles. Strategic leaders have have skills to focus on multiple facets of the business instead of ensuring success in a single area. They make decisions that position the business for the future, while meeting current demands.
Typically, strategic leaders are involved in creating significant organizational change. This difference means that the challenges faced by strategic leaders will also be different.
Strategic leadership skills
Strategic leaders ideally have the ability to challenge prevailing viewpoints without provoking significant pushback, to see the big and small picture at the same time, to adapt to marketplace changes and take advantage of new opportunities, to make difficult decisions, to balance an analytical perspective with the human dimension of strategy building, and to advocate for and engage with employees.
Key traits of an effective strategic leader include loyalty to the organization’s vision, judicious use of power, transparency, effective communication, problem-solving, readiness to delegate, passion for their job, compassion, empathy for others and self-awareness.
Difference made by strategic leadership
Larger picture
Strategic decisions impact areas outside your own functional area, business unit, or even the organization. An effective strategic leader sees the organization as interdependent and interconnected, so that actions and decisions in one part of the organization are undertaken with their impact on other parts of the organization in mind. Operational leadership does not necessarily extend this far.
Farsighted
Strategic work takes place over long periods of time. The strategic leader operates with a far-reaching timetable, integrating short-term results and a long-term focus. Not all leadership requires a forward view to be effective. Very good operational leaders manage day-to-day functions effectively and are skilled at working with people to ensure that short-term objectives are met.
Change-oriented
The strategic leader is often a driver of organizational change. The impact of their work cascades or ripples throughout the organization. Effective operational leadership doesn’t necessarily institute significant organizational change. Strategic leaders must look beyond the process of setting strategy, to what comes next:
How to be a strategic leader
Strategic leadership is not necessarily the same for every person or situation. The situational differences between companies, industries and even different departments. It can create fluctuations in the way leadership skills are utilized. The important thing is that one should be willing and able to adapt to strategic leadership methodologies. Here are some steps you can follow to be the strategic leader:
Distribute responsibility
The best leaders distribute responsibility in a way that empowers employees to learn to take calculated risks when making decisions. This helps to increase the self-confidence and sharpen the skills of employees as well as facilitates the overall success of the organization.
Transparency
Strategic leaders know that sharing information is crucial for creating new opportunities for growth. Allowing access to relevant information can help future leaders feel more confident in challenging potentially inefficient processes or introducing better ideas to improve the practices of the company.
Communication and innovation
One of the key skills for effective strategic leadership is to find ways to present ideas so that everyone fully understands and has the opportunity to provide feedback and additional contributions. Removing limits teaches future strategic leaders to embrace their creativity for innovation while connecting their curated solutions to the end goal.
Collaboration
Collaboration opportunities can enhance employees understanding of how the different parts of the company function to create a collaborative result. They can become more adept in recognizing the value of what they each contribute.
Experiential learning
While many aspects of leadership development are informative rather than experiential, budding strategic leaders need the chance to put their theoretical strategies into real action to get real-life feedback and results. Instructional training is still important to develop managerial knowledge and skills, but considering long-term results requires learning through hands-on experience.
Hire correctly
When managers do the hiring, it’s easy for them to gravitate toward hiring people who remind them of themselves. However, an active manager can hire objectively if they’re looking for potential for growth rather than similarities between the candidate and themselves.
Draw on experience
To be an effective strategic leader, you must be able to evaluate problems and formulate solutions by pulling from your previous experiences and adapting what you’ve learned from those experiences in a way that makes sense in the current situation. Just as important is encouraging others to do the same. This allows your team to feel comfortable using what they know and learning what they didn’t know.
Reflecting
Strategic leaders can identify the difficulties inherent in problem-solving. Deep reflection to approach certain situations subjectively helps recognize one when contemplating subsequent situations. Reflection allows leaders to take a step back and focus on the larger picture and how the minutiae contribute to the overall outcome.
Continuous development
Strategic leaders are aware that there are always opportunities for further learning, whether it’s for themselves or others. Strategic leader is experienced, but also humble. They’re intelligent, and also vulnerable. Showing the team these characteristics can encourage them to recognize the same in themselves and learn from it. Continuous learning is what gives strategists the ability to develop their skills and to carry them over to new roles, new environments and even new industries.
