Leadership Challenge: Why is it difficult to be more strategic?

I've been deeply interested in how organizational leaders successfully toggle between Strategy and Execution. And I have found that most leaders struggle with this 'ratio'. Some of it is because of their own personal and leadership styles and some of its because how they structure and optimize their organization.

Many of them report that they desire to do more of the strategy work, but often find themselves neck deep in executional or operational tasks.

The recent Anatomy At Work 2023 research by Asana, highlights the following in their report:

The Higher the leader is on the Org chart, the more difficult it becomes to make decisions quickly and keep teams aligned to these decisions.

Here are the top 3 reasons why they find it difficult:

• Personal inability to let go and lack of trust in teams: (I want it that way!)

One common reason they struggle to prioritize strategy is their personal inability to let go of operational tasks. They feel a strong need to control every aspect of the organization's operations, leading to a lack of trust in their teams. As a result, they micromanage and involve themselves in day-to-day activities, thus impeding their ability to focus on strategic thinking.

For e.g. Sarah, a CEO of a growing tech-startup, is passionate about the company's product and is gung-ho about its future. However she has a hard time delegating responsibilities and trusting her team members to handle operational tasks. She finds herself involved in minor decision-making, such as approving routine expenses or reviewing individual project details, which leaves her with little time for strategic planning. This micromanagement slows down the organization's growth and limits Sarah's ability to focus on long-term goals. And also leads to a lot of frustration among her colleagues.

• Operational or structural inefficiencies: (The Vicious Cycle!)

Many leaders also find themselves stuck in executional tasks due to inefficiencies within the organization. They may be aware of these inefficiencies but fail to take action to resolve them. Consequently, they resort to constant interventions and firefighting to compensate for the inefficiencies rather than addressing the root causes.

For e.g. Amit, the COO of a manufacturing company, knows that their production line has several bottlenecks that hinders efficiency. However, instead of investing time and resources to redesign the production process and resolve the bottlenecks, Amit opts for a Band-Aid approach. He frequently intervenes in the production line, reassigning tasks on the spot to ensure timely delivery. While this addresses immediate challenges, it prevents him from focusing on strategic initiatives that can transformed the company's long-term performance.

• Overloading the system with constant changes: (Where's the forest? I can only see the trees!)

Leaders who constantly introduce changes, new expectations, and additions to the strategy or even its tactics. overload the system and create confusion among their teams. This overload causes the original objectives and strategies to get lost in translation and employees struggle to keep up with the rapidly shifting priorities.

For e.g. Wang, the director of a marketing department, is very well connected in the industry and gets a lot of new ideas which results in a habit of introducing frequent changes to the team's projects and objectives. Every week, he will modify project scopes, add new requirements, or shift priorities. While Wang believes that these changes lead to agility and better outcomes, they end up overwhelming his team members. As a result, the team struggled to align their efforts with the organization's long-term strategy, leading to decreased productivity and confusion about their goals.

• People don't volunteer enough. (Poor psychological safety or lack of leadership capability)

Another key reason why senior managers may shy away from decision-making is a reluctance to volunteer for such responsibilities. This can stem from two primary factors: poor psychological safety and a lack of leadership capability within the organization. And when leaders down the line show up, the leader on top gets inundated with 'leadership decisions' to make.

For. e.g. In a large consumer goods company, the middle management team hesitate to make important operational decisions (especially in ambiguous situations) due to the organization's culture of pointing fingers and assigning blame. Managers are concerned that if their decisions don't yield results or if unforeseen challenges arise, then they would be held responsible. This fear paralyzes their ability to exercise autonomy and stifles innovation and efficiency. This causing the CEO or the senior most leaders to step in, taking away their time and focus from transforming the organization to running it!

There are many solutions to each of these challenges. However at the core of it, is for leaders to realize what they are missing out when they don't spend quality time working on strategic aspects.

I recommend, this unique book: The One-Hour Strategy: Building a Company of Strategic Thinkers, by Jeroen Kraaijenbrink which gives practical and useful tips on how Strategy can be everyone's responsibility!

There's also this article that I had written earlier which helps you understand how to link Strategy to OKRs and then with everyone else within the organization. ???????????????????? ?????? ?????????? ???? ?????? ???????? ?????????? ?????? ???????? ?????? ?????????????? ???????????????????????????? ????????????s,

OKRs help organizations succeed! Period! But its the collective enthusiasm and energy of the people that help in making OKRs happen. This energy is dependent on how well the movers and shakers understand business strategy.

Reach out to?Kenneth Paul Lewis , here on LinkedIn or write to him [email protected] to coach your organization's leaders on strategy and OKRs.

Visit us at?www.okrinternational.com ?to learn more!

OKR International is based out of Mumbai, India and helps all type of companies across the globe to succeed with OKRs.