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May 2006

Strategic Leadership Achieves Goals

One of the most important functions of a leader involves strategy. The effective leader must be able to set strategy, and achieve the goals of that strategy.

This applies whether you're the president of the company, the head of the department, or the team leader.

And yet many organizations do poorly in this crucial area, and therefore never come close to achieving their potential.

Strategy, in its most basic definition, is the set of actions you plan to take to achieve your goals, your objectives, your vision.

Without strategy, and without strategic leadership, you and your organization are like a boat adrift in the sea: You can do a lot of rowing, move swiftly, and even go far, but still be nowhere, and lost.

Unfortunately, lots of organizations are too busy rowing to think about where they're headed or whether they'll arrive at their destination. And when they aren't rowing, everyone's arguing about whom to blame.

The strategic leader helps the organization scan the
surrounding seascape, looking for new markets, seeing how technology will affect product and service delivery, and determining how future trends will influence the organization.

Only then can the organization develop specific action plans for dealing with the future.

The strategic leader helps the organization see what needs to be done to meet its objectives over a given period, say a year.

Then the strategic leader looks at what must be done quarterly to contribute to hitting the yearly goals. Next, at what must be done monthly, then weekly. This process determines the day-to-day activities.

The goals and objectives need several important
characteristics. They need to be specific and measurable, because if they're too general, how will you know you've achieved them?

Goals also need to be attainable and realistic, because if people have no hope of reaching the goals because the bar is set unrealistically high, those goals and objectives will de-motivate people.

The final characteristic is that the goals must be time
sensitive, tied to a specific time frame. Without this time frame, people can always excuse themselves for not attaining the goal by saying, 'We're still working on it.'

With a specific time frame, you can respond, 'Yes, but you were supposed to have achieved that by the end of the last quarter.'

You can remember the above characteristics with the acronym, SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-sensitive).

The other important aspect of strategic leadership is holding people accountable. An executive recently complained to me that some of her departments never hit their goals. Never?

Certain circumstances can explain not hitting them some of the time.

But 'never' hitting them means that nobody is holding department heads responsible for achieving their goals. If there are no adverse consequences for not achieving goals, there is no incentive for achievement.

That's a leadership problem.

As leaders we need to be clear in setting strategies, and in defining the consequences of achieving the goals, and of not achieving them. That's how we get accountability in an organization.

The strategic plan, however, is not set in concrete. (If it were, the boat might sink.) The plan is flexible, and the strategic leader will modify it if significant changes in the seascape, or the weather, occur.

That's the difference between strategic leaders, and ordinary ones. Strategic leaders are focused on the future, and what needs to be done in the present to reach that future.

Ordinary leaders are focused only on the present, and doing the day-to-day activities or tasks to survive the day.

What if you're not an 'official' leader? Then, all of the
above applies to you as an individual, because you should concentrate on setting and achieving strategic goals for yourself.

As an individual your boat may occupy a smaller space on the seascape, but you still must be rigorous in defining your vision, setting a strategy with meaningful goals and action plans, and holding yourself accountable for achieving significant results.

What are you doing to chart your strategic course on the turbulent seas around you? Are you setting SMART goals? What are you doing to hold yourself, and others, accountable for achieving results?

Until next edition, keep leading the way!

Copyright (C) 2006 by Terry Wall

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