Over and over again I hear from clients that they want to develop their strategic thinking or become more strategic. Sometimes this comes from vague feedback they’ve received about what they need to do to reach the next level and sometimes it comes from realising that they spend way too much of their working day ‘in the weeds’.
So what is strategic thinking? What does that look like?
I put this question to ChatGPT and got quite a long answer which I won’t bore you with! To me, in really simple terms, it’s seeing the big picture and focusing on the longer, rather than shorter, time horizon. What happens to many of us in our day to day work is that we get caught up in the short-term and fire-fighting activities – doing the weeding rather than stepping back to assess the whole garden and take action to plan and plant for future seasons.
It is an essential element of any leaders role to carve out time to focus on the strategic work. Sometimes we don’t do this because it feels too difficult, rather than not having the time to do it. We use time as an excuse (often unwittingly) to put off things that feel challenging and out of our comfort zone.
What’s really stopping you I wonder?
If it truly is time then you need to be taking a long hard look at the work you do and work out what you need to stop doing, maybe it can be delegated to someone else or maybe you could just stop doing it? You’ll find plenty of helpful tips on that in my other blogs, maybe start with my Quick Tips on Delegation or you could focus on reducing your Mental Load as a way to free up more time.
Once you’ve freed up some time, you need to focus on developing yourself as a strategic leader.
Here are my tips to help you with that
- Understand yourself – your values, strengths, development areas and leadership style. Self- awareness is the best foundation for any personal development.
- Keep learning – go to workshops and conferences about your industry and profession. Read as widely as you can to develop a more holistic perspective. Which are the parts of your organisation that you know least about? Go and talk to your colleagues in those areas and learn more.
- Build your network – connect with people from diverse backgrounds and industries to expose yourself to different perspectives. You can read more about this topic in my blog Networking – an essential step towards your success.
- Develop your communication and influencing skills. As you learn more offer your thoughts and insights to your peers, share them in meetings. By spending time developing these interpersonal skills you will feel more confident to speak up. It can feel uncomfortable, and you may doubt yourself, but remember insights from someone who is one stepped removed from a situation can be incredibly valuable, so share your thoughts.
- Regularly make time to reflect on the bigger picture as it related to you organisation/industry/profession. The business landscape is constantly changing. What are you hearing internally and externally? Collect your thoughts, what insights can you draw? Time spent on this type of strategic thinking enables you to anticipate trends, plan for the future and make well-informed decisions.
How would it feel to be thought of as a strategic leader?
Now you know what to do what’s stopping you?
We need more women to be senior leaders in our organisations – are you going to be one of them?
As always I’m here to help you on that journey so do get in touch to see how we can work together.
I hope this article has been useful for you. You’ll find more blogs and videos on topics related to women leaders on my website and You Tube channel.