"She's Not Strategic"

How Executive Coaches Can Unpack Feedback for Women Clients

Senior level women tell us that one of the most common pieces of feedback they hear is, “She’s not strategic.” Most of them fundamentally take exception to the statement without truly understanding the message(s) behind the feedback. And, most often the feedback includes no actionable specifics about what’s behind the comment. Here’s where you, as an executive coach, play a most important role.

Many women don’t understand the notion of “what you see depends on where you stand.” They don't always see that their leadership behaviors look different to them than it does to those above them. To themselves they feel strategic because they:

• Understand the big picture of their function, BU or overall business
• Have cutting edge ideas for enhancements, new business opportunities, transformations
• Follow trends in the external environment
• Build cross-functional, cross-BU, external relationships to import innovative ideas

What they often don’t see - because they often get no feedback at all - is that from the level(s) above them these actions are expected and that being “strategic” means more. Depending on their level it can mean that they are expected to:

• Execute corporate strategy with commitment
• Visibly align team goals and actions to corporate strategy
• Be able to propose an innovative idea with a financial business case built in alignment with corporate strategy
• Give input to strategy development with a financial business case behind it
• Develop strategy to further the financial goals of the business and position the business in its marketplace

4 Reasons Why Women Rarely Hear About Strategic Acumen

Why do women rarely get actionable feedback about being strategic. First, because women rarely get actionable feedback at all. *

And, when they do they most often receive negative feedback that is personality-based.

Second, most managers take the need for strategic acumen as a “given” that is developed through mentorship (more infrequently given to women) and positions (e.g. close and in the core of the business). “As I discuss in my TED Talk, when I’ve asked executives what it takes to be seen as promotable, they easily cite personal attributes and interpersonal capabilities. When I ask, ‘What about: understanding the business, an ability to make decisions based on financials, or capability to set and/or execute strategy?’ they respond, “That’s a given.’”

Third the formal feedback women get rarely speaks to strategic acumen. Why? As discussed in my article 8 Tips for Coaching Executive Women, most of the feedback-supporting assessments, leadership models and performance review criteria “relied upon by coaches and their clients over-measure P (Personal greatness) and E (Engaging the greatness in others) capabilities and under-measure O. Across dozens of corporations, questions related to business, strategic and financial acumen (O) accounted for an average of only 24% of the feedback subjects receive.”

Fourth, as an executive coach, you might frequently use assessments such as MBTI, Strengths Finder, DiSC, etc. As discussed in the 8 Tips article, these invaluable tools, as with corporate resources, unfortunately over-measure P (Personal greatness) and E (Engaging the greatness in others) and under-measure O (including business, strategic & financial acumen). Which means that you have very few resources for unpacking a comment on lack of strategic acumen that you might hear from your client’s manager.

What’s an Executive Coach to Do?

As discussed in my 8 Tips article, strategic acumen is one part of The Missing 33% of the career success equation for women. Not because women don’t or can’t have strategic acumen, but because they are less likely to be coached to develop and demonstrate strategic acumen. Here are 4 actions you can take to best support your client by unpacking feedback she might be receiving in relation the the crucial skills around strategic acumen:

1. Realize that a lack of actionable feedback about strategic acumen will likely impact your effectiveness in working with your client and her manager. Tune into any feedback that even remotely touches on your client’s strategic acumen. Use this feedback as a springboard for follow-up questions. (Examples to be covered in Part 2)
2. If you hear no feedback at all, directly ask the manager about her strategic acumen (Part 2 will provide you with a host of questions).
3. To the extent that any of the available corporate assessments and tools touch on strategic acumen, pay close attention to the feedback coming from your client’s manager and others above her. Feedback from peers and direct reports is less important for her future aspirations.
4. Become more adept at supporting your women clients by learning more about what strategic acumen might look like in the eyes of her manager (See Part 2).

What's a coach to do? Take a look at the practical ideas in Part 2 . Before you go, please add your comments, questions and shared insights below.

For related information read No Ceiling, No Walls.

• * https://www.fastcompany.com/3034895/the-one-word-men-never-see-in-their-performance-reviews
• * https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-reasons-women-dont-get-the-feedback-they-need-11570872601
• * https://hbr.org/2016/04/research-vague-feedback-is-holding-women-back
• * https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/10/managers-give-women-less-feedback-gender-bias-in-performance-reviews/