Navigating the Shift: A blueprint for strategic leadership development

Traditionally, figuring out whether someone is more tactical than strategic has been a bit of a guessing game, relying on job titles, gut feelings, and cherry-picked observations. Executives frequently hear the call to shift from tactical to strategic thinking. In addressing this transition, executive coach Rich Horwath offers a blueprint in collaboration with Harvard Business Review. Targeted at ‘high-potential employees’, the roadmap emphasizes three key behaviours—acumen, allocation, and action. By assessing how individuals evaluate situations, generate ideas, set goals, distribute resources, and execute business strategies.

Acumen

It is all about how you think. It involves your ability to understand a situation, come up with fresh ideas to move from where you are now to where you want to be and tackle challenges to create new value. Acumen has three main components:

Context Awareness: This is about having a clear vision of the big picture. Understanding both your internal situation (like culture, purpose, processes) and external factors (market trends, customer behavior, competition) helps you allocate resources effectively to reach your goals.

Insight: It’s all about your ability to learn from your context awareness. This requires curiosity and an exploratory mindset. Strategic thinkers stand out because they consistently record, categorize, share, and reflect on their insights.

Innovation: This is when you use your context awareness and insights to create something new and valuable. Usually, it comes from thinking through a challenge or solving a problem.

Ask yourself these questions

·         Do I regularly assess my business’s current situation from both internal and external perspectives?

·         Am I sharing valuable insights with my team?

·         When problem-solving, am I open to new approaches or do I stick to what’s worked before?

Allocation

This is all about how you plan things out. Strategic thinkers set goals, allocate resources, consider risks and tradeoffs in decision-making, and create an advantage by delivering superior value. It involves three main components:

Resource Focus: Can you focus your resources effectively? It’s about having the discipline to make trade-offs and ensuring your resource use aligns with your strategic goals.

Decision Making: Instead of going for the obvious choice, strategic thinkers generate various alternatives. They analyze the pros and cons of each, including acceptable levels of risk.

Competitive Advantage: The whole point of strategy is to gain a benefit, an edge, or profit. This happens when your resources and activities create more value for customers than your competitors. Strategic thinkers keep evolving this advantage to stay ahead.

To check your allocation skills, consider the following.

·         Am I proactively moving resources from areas that aren’t performing well to those with more potential?

·         Are my activities aligned with my goals?

Action

Now, action is about what you do. Crafting a business strategy is just the beginning; success hinges on your ability to collaborate, execute strategies, and optimise your performance. The action involves three key elements:

Collaboration: Can you work effectively with others, exchanging knowledge and communicating well to progress toward your goals?

Execution: This is about applying your resources with discipline to achieve your goals. It requires focus and discipline to avoid getting distracted by interruptions.

Personal Performance: Managing your own time, energy, and mindset to reach your goals. Being strategic means being flexible, adaptable, and mentally agile in the face of challenges.

To assess your action skills, ask yourself these questions.

·         How ready am I to take action when implementing a strategy?

·         Do I ask others about their goals at the start of a conversation?

·         Am I prone to getting sidetracked by obstacles along the way?

In a nutshell, being strategic is all about having insights that lead to an advantage. Acumen, allocation, and action – the ability to think, plan, and do – are what set strategic thinkers apart. And the good news is, these are behaviours that can be learned and applied to create superior value. While beauty may be subjective, being strategic is all in the behaviour.