Six Key Strategic Leadership Skills

In this Harvard Business Review article, Paul Schoemaker, Steve Krupp, and Samantha Howland (Wharton School) say that adaptive strategic leaders – those who are both resolute and flexible, persistent in the face of setbacks but also able to react strategically to environmental shifts – have developed six key skills. They:

• Anticipate – This means detecting ambiguous threats, “weak signals”, and opportunities that aren’t in plain sight. To improve the ability to anticipate, leaders should talk constantly to stakeholders to understand their challenges; conduct surveys; imagine and plan for different future scenarios; look at what successful rivals are doing; figure out what’s going on with institutional failures; and attend conferences in other fields.

• Challenge – “Strategic thinkers question the status quo,” say Schoemaker, Krupp, and Howland. “They challenge their own and others’ assumptions and encourage divergent points of view. Only after careful reflection and examination of a problem through many lenses do they take decisive action. This requires patience, courage, and an open mind.” To get better at this, leaders should focus on the root causes of a problem versus the symptoms; ask “Why?” five times when confronted with a problem; list long-standing assumptions and ask a diverse group if they still hold true; encourage debate by holding “safe zone” meetings in which open dialogue and conflict are expected and welcomed; include naysayers in a decision process to surface challenges early; and get input from people not directly affected by a decision.

• Interpret – Synthesize input and reexamine it to expose its hidden implications, recognize patterns, push through ambiguity, and seek new insights. To get better at this, leaders need to list at least three possible explanations for ambiguous data and invite input from diverse stakeholders; zoom in on the details and zoom out to see the big picture; actively look for missing information and evidence that disconfirms one’s hypothesis; include quantitative data; and step away (go for a walk, look at art, put on non-traditional music, play ping-pong) to promote an open mind.

• Decide – “In uncertain times, decision-makers may have to make tough calls with incomplete information,” say the authors, “and often they must do so quickly.” But they shouldn’t get to that point without a process that gives them multiple options, avoids getting prematurely locked into simplistic choices or shooting from the hip, considers trade-offs, and takes short- and long-term consequences into account. To get better at this, leaders need to reframe binary decisions and reach out for more options; divide big decisions into pieces; tailor decision criteria to long-term versus short-term projects; let others know where one is in the decision-making process (i.e., still open to input or moving toward closure); decide who needs to be directly involved and can influence success; and consider pilot programs or experiments and make staged commitments.

• Align – What is stakeholders’ tolerance and motivation for change? What are conflicting interests? “This requires active outreach,” say Shoemaker, Krupp, and Howland. “Success depends on proactive communication, trust building, and frequent engagement.” To get better at this, leaders need to communicate early and often so that, later on, people don’t say No one ever asked me and No one ever told me; identify key internal and external stakeholders and map their obvious and hidden interests; expose areas of misunderstanding or resistance; reach out to resisters to understand and address their concerns; monitor stakeholders’ positions as decisions are implemented; and recognize and reward colleagues who support team alignment.

• Learn – Tell stories about success and failure to promote institutional wisdom, and be open to making mid-course corrections. To get better at this, leaders need to institute after-action reviews, document lessons learned, and broadly communicate the insights gained; reward subordinates who try something brave and fail; conduct annual learning audits to see where initiatives are falling short; and create a culture in which inquiry is valued and mistakes are viewed as learning opportunities.

“Strategic Leadership: The Essential Skills” by Paul Schoemaker, Steve Krupp, and Samantha Howland in Harvard Business Review, January-February 2013 (Vol. 91, #1-2, p. 131-134), no e-link available

From the Marshall Memo #467