In every career, as soon as someone is put in charge of something or somebody (or a lot of somebodies), the skills the executive needs to succeed change. Whereas in their past as an individual contributor or team member, they could rely on their tactical competencies and their technical expertise, when “in charge,” they likely will need to rely on strategic and interpersonal skills.
The corporate training world recognizes that progression. And although it is still heavily biased toward skill training and certifications, it does offer training and education in interpersonal skills and leadership…but rarely in strategy, strategic thinking, or strategic leadership skills.
LEADING INTO THE FUTURE
Former President (and General) Dwight D. Eisenhower reminded us that leadership is “the ability to decide what has to get done and get people to want to do it.” That first part of the leadership equation is the strategic thinking part of leadership: deciding where the organization needs to go. Why there? Why now? What’s the reward? How will we know when we get there? What is the path to “there”? Will there be obstacles along the way? Who is doing what and why on this journey? And many other strategic questions.
Strategic thinking is about leading an organization into the future, which cannot yet be perfectly known. Because the future is contingent and ambiguous, it requires not technical skills to perfectly predict the unknown but rather a mindset to be an effective strategic leader. Ultimately, strategy is a WAY to think, not a WHAT to think. It is not a specific outcome; it is a process of learning how to see the world around you, organize your thoughts around it, and develop ideas to test and probe possible courses of action.
Strategic thinking requires stepping back to see the larger picture rather than becoming absorbed in the issues immediately in front of the organization. It means projecting one’s mind forward to anticipate long-term challenges instead of reacting only to today’s crises or opportunities. It also involves discerning patterns and connections within the broader market ecosystem that will shape the organization’s future.
LEARNING TO THINK AND ACT STRATEGICALLY
The capacity to plan for and actively shape that future is vital for every organization and its leaders. Yet this skill is seldom taught in formal executive development, which is why it often represents one of the most challenging transitions for even the most accomplished managers seeking to become effective leaders.
Learning to think and act strategically is neither intuitive nor easy. The difficulty lies in part in how most executives rise: through execution, by delivering results, by “putting points on the board.” The ability to perform and deliver outcomes is the baseline requirement of executive life—but leadership demands something more. Moving the organization to a better future ahead of competitors and challenges is very different from accomplishing complex tasks.
This is accepted, and every executive development model recognizes strategic thinking as a core competency for senior leaders. According to one famous study, only 4 percent of executives are naturally strategic thinkers. Given those two facts, one would expect strategic thinking courses and classes to be well represented in the training curriculum, but strangely, they are not.
There is encouraging news for aspiring leaders. First, anyone can learn to think strategically. Second, over the past several decades, business strategists have developed a rich set of tools—often called frameworks— that guide executives in this process. These frameworks don’t provide magic answers, but they help organize thought, sharpen insight, and sometimes even suggest clear choices about where to take an enterprise and how to get there.
STRATEGIC PLANNING VS. THINKING
In developing this capability, it is essential to heed the insight of management guru Henry Mintzberg and others: Strategic planning is not the same as strategic thinking—at least not in the way it usually is practiced. For many organizations, strategic planning is a ritual performed at regular intervals. It tends to be bottom-up and data-driven. Business units push forward plans that can be measured, justified, and achieved. This produces incremental improvement, not transformation.
Strategic thinkers operate differently. They constantly scan their ecosystem of customers, competitors, and partners, and are always on the lookout for new options. They watch markets closely—tracking shifts in customer behavior and competitor moves—while looking inward, probing the strengths and weaknesses of their people, technologies, and core competencies to understand what moves are possible.
Strategic thinking begins with a vision of an alternative future—not an improved version of the present. It is about identifying opportunities in the market, drawing lessons from past strategies—both tried and untried —and framing new options built around unique organizational strengths competitors cannot easily replicate.
This is not a dreamy exercise detached from reality. The best strategic thinkers are rigorous in aligning market opportunities with enterprise capabilities. Where capabilities are missing, they chart a path to acquire them—through key hires, investment in research and development, or acquisitions.
Strategic thinkers plan not for the company they are, but for the company they have yet to become. True strategic thinkers often turn off their analytical brain, which breaks problems down to solve them, and instead turn on their synthetic brain, which pulls everything back together and seeks patterns and connections. Strategic thinkers are systems thinkers, attuned to how the ecosystems that affect their enterprise interact and impact each other and the environment.
SEEING PATTERNS AND POSSIBILITIES
Strategic leadership is not about having a stroke of genius, and a strategic leader is not simply in the idea-generation business. While new processes, products, or innovations may emerge from strategic work, the essence lies elsewhere. A strategic leader is in the business of thinking differently—and cultivating a disciplined mindset that resists being consumed by daily management fire drills and endless tangles of detail. Instead, a strategic leader deliberately steps back, tunes out the noise, and sees the larger patterns and possibilities that shape the future.