Are you developing strategic thinking or just assuming it will?
Strategic thinking develops in stages and improves with deliberate coaching.
This article is the third in a six-part series, Building Strategic Capacity in Your Leadership Team, exploring how CEOs help operational leaders develop the judgment, perspective, and tradeoff thinking required to contribute meaningfully to strategy rather than simply execute it. Read the first article here.
THINK ON IT: Are you developing strategic thinking or just assuming it will?
At a recent Strategic Masters Club session, one of the executives made an observation that stuck with me.
Reflecting on her career, she said she couldn’t point to how she learned to think strategically. And until that session, the question had never really occurred to her.
That’s not surprising.
Few leaders give much thought to how they developed their ability to think strategically. Even fewer consider how they should develop it in others. For many, it’s simply assumed that some people are more strategic than others. They just pick it up faster.
There may be some truth to that.
But if you believe strategic thinking is either an innate trait or something reserved for senior leaders, you won’t develop it in your team.
And you’ll likely carry most of the burden of it yourself.
Part of the problem is how we’ve been taught to think about leadership itself. We often divide it into two categories. Strategic thinking happens at the top. Execution happens everywhere else. And so, leaders mature into either strong operators or strong strategists.
But that can turn into a binary view of development. Some leaders are seen as capable of strategic thinking. Others, not so much.
Yet, that framing misses something important.
Not every leader needs to be an expert strategist, just as not every leader needs to be an expert tactician. But every leader should develop some level of strategic awareness.
And developing that capability among an operational expert doesn’t diminish operational excellence. In many cases, it strengthens it by bringing greater clarity to what matters most.
The challenge is that most organizations reward operational excellence over strategic. Most of what lands on a leader’s plate is operational. The metrics they are measured against reinforce execution and speed. And, psychologically, they enjoy immediate internal rewards for solving problems and keeping things moving.
Strategic thinking, by contrast, is exercised far less frequently.
In many companies, that’s most expected during an annual planning session. Leaders are asked to metaphorically put on their “thinking caps” and shift into an entirely different mode of processing, one that was likely last exercised the year before.
So, it’s not surprising that those annual strategy conversations sometimes lack depth or drift back into operational critiques of what won’t work.
But, what if you developed your team to think strategically all year long?
In my experience working with leadership teams, strategic thinking doesn’t appear all at once. It develops progressively.
You can see it in how different leaders engage the same conversation. Once you start looking for it, the differences become obvious.
Some stay close to the immediate issue. Their focus is on solving the problem in front of them. The broader implications are less visible. This is what I would call operational absorption.
Others, still reacting to what’s happening in the moment, begin to see patterns and how those patterns might affect the business. They start asking how decisions might affect customers, competitors, or even other parts of the organization that an operationally absorbed leader would not. This is strategic awareness.
Some connect decisions more directly to the direction of the business. They evaluate tradeoffs and contribute meaningfully to strategic discussions. This reflects strategic competence.
And a few consistently think ahead. They anticipate shifts, frame choices, and help shape the direction of the company. This is strategic mastery.
These differences aren’t random. They reflect stages in how leaders think about the business and engage the future.
Leaders move through these stages unevenly. Some advance quickly. Others need more support and repetition.
The key insight is this: you don’t move leaders forward by asking them to make a leap. You move them forward by prompting them to think the way the next stage requires.
And when that happens consistently, strategic thinking becomes something that can be developed, not something you have to hope for.
In the Act on It section below, you’ll find the Strategic Thinking Ladder which describes the above four stages of strategic thinking development along with ways you can coach your leaders up the ladder. (Premium Members only. Not a member yet? Become a Premium Member. Paid subscribers get access to over 100 tools and how-tos for implementing strategic topics, including a 7-part series to help leaders build their own strategic capacity.)
“No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.” — Voltaire
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