Strategic Leadership
What is Strategic Leadership?
Strategic Leadership is the ability to influence others to voluntarily make decisions that will enhance the prospect of long-term success whilst maintaining long-term health and well-being. Managing complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity require strategic leadership practices to support continuous personal learning and adaptive behaviour. It’s largely about the quality of thinking and engagement that takes place in conversations.
Watch this short video as Peter Senge explains why leadership is about a way of being, not a role or domain of knowledge.
Leaders achieve their intentions by being effective communicators, collaborators, and coordinators of thought and action. The challenge is how to get others to “buy-in” to the vision and direction of adaptive change. The focus here is on the human dimension of strategic leadership that is often neglected. I have spent many years coaching senior managers who link actions and results with resources, yet fail to see how their own blind spots cause many of the breakdowns they blame others for.
Looking at strategy from a complexity perspective
We all exist in a worldview that determines what we see and do. We live in interpretations that depend on the distinctions we can make. As a Life Leader, you will have a way of observing and being in your world that enables you to question some of your assumptions and not others. It depends on what strategy and leadership mean to you. That’s why I start with the question to understand “WHAT” we are observing and focusing your time and attention on? We then have to ask “SO WHAT” does this mean to me and others so we can generate a shared understanding of what’s possible. We seek clarity of direction and purpose before asking “NOW WHAT” can we do to move forward and what do we have that enables us to do it. These questions expand our thinking about what constraints and opportunities we need to adapt to. After an action is taken the world moves on and new conditions are created from which a new “WHAT” comes to mind and the cycle repeats itself.
The “WHAT” is not just a description of something, we are looking for an actionable definition that is observable and executable, otherwise, we get stuck in analysing the problem and not adopting a solution focus. We must be able to observe and explore new options to take us forward.
Adopting a Solution Focus
Paul Jackson and Mark MacKergow produced a model that adopts a strategic view of leading change that enables us to uncover our blind spots. We may see what needs to be done and fail to see that we do not have the capacity to deliver to a high enough standard. The diagram below shows a way of identifying where the gap between our thinking (desired outcome) and reality (our actual results). The focus for action defines the “WHAT”, the expectations the “SO WHAT” and the small actions the “NOW WHAT”questions.
Strategic leadership is more of performance art that we have to observe ourselves seeing, being and acting out to transform the results we get whilst constantly adapting to changes in our context and our identity. Life and leadership have to be seen as a collection of practices not a body of theory. This is because we live in our perceptions. What we notice and make sense of causes us to reframe and interpret our assessments and decide to deal with the “breakdowns” in our performance.
Observing our observer
As human beings, we have a unique capacity to observe ourselves observing ourselves, others and the world around us. We can observe and judge thoughts, feelings and actions. One of the biggest blind spots we can have as Life Leaders is the ability to observe our own Way of Being and our capacity to shift it to generate new insights and new possibilities for change. Our leadership strategy or the paradigm we live in now is determined by the language we use, the moods we are in and the body postures we adopt in our relationships and conversations with others.
Our biggest challenge is to develop a more powerful awareness of our observation skills to see our thinking, being and doing from the viewpoint of curiosity to question our beliefs, habits and assumptions. For example, if we continue to be angry with someone it can seriously affect the quality of our relationships and performance. If we are able to step back, take stock and observe the thinking that is causing the emotions that aren’t working for us we can see that the reality we are experiencing is self-created. We are allowing someone else’s words, actions and events to determine our behaviour from the outside-in.
The diagram below explains how inside-out awareness works. As we sense and make sense of the world around us we have three main domains of action as human beings that we can observe in ourselves and others. What we observe and the interpretations we place on our experiences are influenced by our personal history and culture together with the feedback we get from our relationships and the results of our actions. Instead of just reacting by just changing our actions we can change our thinking by reflecting on how our Way of Being shapes the results we look for.
When we shift our Way of Being we can change how we see how the assumptions and assessments we make actually determines the actions we chose to deliver the results we get. A strategic leader reflects on the results required and asks what new way of thinking might allow us to see actions that we didn’t see before. For example, if we see the act of trust changing the relationship this could impact on the result. This happens when we observe unreliability or a lack of sincerity and competence. If e observe potential and commitment we can create trust by giving trust. The observation changes how the result is perceived and the action taken.
Success as a side-effect of practice
When we think we know what we want attention has to be given to the practices that enable us to take effective action. The result of a process is something we value that comes from what goes into it. Making money might be the result, but there are many life and leadership skills that are vital yet often unseen. Such as holding yourself and others accountable for what’s promised, knowing how to make offers and request that can be delivered, negotiating timescales and standards, etc. Then, there is commitment, compassion, courage, connections, resilience, the list of human traits goes on. When we choose a result that we want, achieving it depends on how clear we are about what we want. Ask yourself:
When we choose a result that we want, achieving it depends on how clear we are about what we want and how we can add value to the result. Ask yourself:
1. What exactly do you want to happen?
2. What bigger purpose will the result deliver for you?
3. Where are you now in relation to your goal?
4. What will you be able to do when you have achieved the result you want that you cannot do now?
5. What inner resources do you have that you can bring to the actions you need to take?
6. What practices do you not have that you will need to learn or develop?
7. What do you stand to gain and lose when you get the result you want?
8. What is your level of commitment when generating the actions needed?
NB: Rate each question – 1 = low and 10 = high. If it’s not 9/10 you need to rethink.
The biggest breakdown in leadership is when we forget about developing the human capacities needed to deliver what’s required to provide value and high performance. Fundamentally, it’s about having meaning and purpose in what we are doing. This is about where every individual is on their life journey. It’s knowing who you are and why you are committing yourself to a particular action. David Rock explains how an understanding of how our brain works can enhance our understanding of strategic leadership.
Paying attention to our intention
When looking to motivate ourselves or create the conditions for others to motivate themselves, it is worth understanding the interpretations and distinctions that are being made when assessing what something means. The “SO WHAT” question. Being busy and working hard is a strategy, but it’s not strategic in getting you what you want. You need to create value from doing meaningful work and this will require a different strategy so you can live in a new life movie. What is the value you get from realising your intention? Is it external recognition and praise or internal satisfaction and a feeling of self-worth?
We can also fail if we continue to pay attention to intentions that on reflection would not deliver the value we expect. Winners and losers have different strategies that are reflected in their Way of Being. Living in a mood of resignation kills off any ambition. When you find yourself struggling with stress or overwork, look for the behaviour and ask yourself what kind of strategy is being adopted.
Clearly, a leadership strategy is not a goal or objective, it is an awareness of what conditions will create the rules for self-organised behaviour that will always lead to actions that serve the result that we care about. When others are involved and actions are coordinated there is a good chance that those leading each commitment will make good assessments of what and why something is needed.
Lessons learned but not embedded
In 1997 I directed a Learning from Service Users (LSU) Project sponsored by Birmingham City Council and the Improvement and Development Agency (previously LGMB). Rising levels of complaints led to the setting up of Call Centres, but they were ineffective and costly because services responsible for delivery could not respond efficiently or effectively The result was “failure demand” as more of the calls were complaints about unresolved complaints. The investment was going into the Call Centre and not the processes for delivery.
The LSU Project worked with 13 services in Birmingham City Council to find an alternative strategy by listening and learning from service users. Many blind spots were uncovered as service providers listened to discover what value they were delivering for their service users. Valuable insights and improvements were identified by simply looking for patterns in behaviour and identifying which assumptions and actions were causing service breakdowns. Recommendations for good practice and training were endorsed but not embedded into service procedures. Instead, policies for responding to complaints were developed to win Awards.
There was a background culture of “the service provider knows best” or “there is no point in learning from service users if our own managers and politicians aren’t prepared to take action”. Here we are in 2017 some twenty years later and the Grenfell Fire Disaster shows that the same lessons have not been learned and statutory regulations had not been implemented. Everyone agrees it’s a question of poor leadership practices. Citizens can see that it’s about the people performance that failed them, whereas the politicians see it as a process problem. We cannot separate people from context.
Strategic Leadership is about paying attention to the human dimensions of leadership from the top and bottom, inside and outside. That is treating people as human beings, not just resources in a system. There seem to be two well-known practices of managers and leaders that are still being neglected in strategic thinking. Always listen to and respond to the needs of your best customers and focus on innovations that deliver the best value from an investment.
References
Connect by Lynn Boyer. Affective Leadership 2011
The Paradox Principles by Price Waterhouse LLB. Irwin 1996
The Innovator’s Way by Peter Denning & Bob Dunham. MIT 2010
Sensemaking by Christian Madsbjerg. Little Brown 2017
Coaching to the Human Soul by Alan Sieler. Newfield Australia. 2003
Conscious Business by Fred Kofman. Sounds True 2006
The Innovators Dilemma by Clayton Christensen. HBR 2016