What Is Strategic Leadership? - Understanding Its Function and Principles

Strategic leaders help develop strategies that guide and improve organizations. The action plans developed by strategic leaders play an important role. These plans focus the organization’s long-term efforts on the overall mission, which inspires and motivates the daily actions of the entire organization. In short, strategic leadership leads to long-term organizational success.

What Is the Purpose of Strategic Leadership?

Strategic Leadership aims to:

• Define realistic long-term goals with the aim at staying competitive
• Raise the productivity of all the members of the organization by clearly explaining the strategy
• Promote innovative thinking at all levels of the organization
• Develop a system where team members can collectively recognize the company’s needs. Team members should be able to act on those needs on their own.

Operational Leadership vs. Strategic Leadership

Strategy, leadership, and operations are terms that are all related but mean different things. Being a leader of a team or an organization doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re involved in the long-term strategy. Your focus may be more on the day-to-day operations vs. the long-term planning.

Operational Leadership typically deals with the current condition of a company. Leaders at this level tend to:

• focus on short-term goals and actions
• manage the daily activities of their team and other stakeholders.
• Fixate on maintaining performance instead of exploring innovation

On the other hand, Strategic Leadership has a longer horizon. Leaders at this level define the roadmap that informs the organization’s decisions.

Strategic leaders tend to:

• Think about outside forces that may affect the organization.
• See new trends to find ways to stay ahead of the business curve.
• Focus on how the company can develop internally to face external needs

While organizational and strategic leadership are different, both are equally important. Strategic leadership isn’t some special type of leadership that only some people are capable of. Instead, it refers to the scope of focus for a particular leader.

For example, let’s consider McDonald’s. McDonald’s is a huge company with thousands of employees. The focus of the CEO is more forward-looking to ensure the company survives in the long term, whereas the focus of the shift manager at a local McDonald’s is on daily activities. Both are needed for the company to thrive.

We can’t have a company where everyone is focused on the future while neglecting the daily actions that will ultimately bring us to where we’re trying to go.

What Are the Characteristics of Strategic Leadership?

The characteristics of Strategic Leadership will be similar to those of any good leader. These include:

• Desire to Stay Informed

Strategic leaders need to know everything that is happening in the company at a macro scale. This includes understanding the lines of business, projects, and people involved in key roles. By staying informed, strategic leaders become more efficient at making action plans that drive the organization.

• Open-Minded

A strategic leader must be open to new information and be willing to act on it. Strategic leaders should invite different views and opinions to ensure that the best decisions are being made.

• Is Self-Aware and Has Self-Control

Strategic leadership requires self-awareness and self-control. Just because you think it’s a great idea doesn’t mean it’s what’s best for the organization. Having the self-awareness to set aside their own ideas is a key trait of a good strategic leader.

•  Has Good Communication Skills

Having good communication skills is a basic characteristic of a good leader. Strategic leaders need to be able to communicate an organization’s long-term strategies in a way that involves and inspires people at every level of the organization.

The Principles of Strategic Leadership

The principles of strategic leadership can apply to senior leaders, new leaders, members, and even others outside of the company. These principles help promote stability, growth, and change.

1. Delegate

Strategic leaders know who needs to be involved with what. This means getting to know the different departments/people, their roles and focus, and their strengths and weaknesses. They distribute tasks based on who is best suited for the job. By delegating effectively, strategic leaders help ensure that long-term goals are being met.

3. Encourage Growth and Experience-based Learning

A strategic leader must set up a plan to improve the skills of the organization’s members. The leader should give their teams growth opportunities to prepare them for future challenges.

Aside from that, leaders must create an environment where it’s okay to fail. Failure is a part of learning. Leaders need to make their team members understand that.

4. Create Opportunities for Others

Leaders aren’t perfect, and feeling the need to handle everything is the surest path to failure. Strategic leaders understand this and find ways to fill the gaps in the organization without trying to do everything themselves.

This could mean hiring new talent, bringing on consultants, or promoting a hard-working individual into a new role. People management is a critical component of strategic leadership but it’s often overlooked.

5. Create a Decision-Making Strategy

Strategic leaders must develop a strategy to approach challenges and the decision-making process. This could mean developing a flow-chart or matrix approach to handle well-defined problems or creating a committee to review key changes.

6. Reflect regularly

Strategic leadership must set aside time for reflection. Finding time to do a retrospective with the team or on your own is important to ensure the organization continues progressing.