Strategic Leadership Examples

Now that we’ve looked at a practical approach a leader can take in charting the course for their organization, let’s start working through some strategic leadership examples we can follow as we move intentionally toward the goals we’ve set for our organizations! But before I ever reference a single external article from someone, somewhere, who’s telling us what we should be doing based on their analytical study, I want to start by sharing a few real life examples that I’ve been blessed to see firsthand!

While a large portion of the material that Cindy and I develop is geared to serve frontline supervisors and managers who, as a general rule, grew into their positions primary because of they mastered the technical aspects of their given fields and rarely have access to the power skills (interpersonal skills) that help to balance those technical skills, we also do a significant amount of work with business owners, CEOs, and other high level executives that oversee the organizations those frontline supervisors and managers work in.One of the ways we do this is through our Executive Leadership Elite Think Tank group, where we meet with a dozen or so business owners and executives for a half day each quarter with a very strategic focus on strengthening their organizations’ leadership cultures. Through those sessions, and through the individual interaction we have with those leaders outside of those sessions, we’ve been able to see some outstanding examples of not only charting the course for their entire company, but also how they provide a visible example for each of the leaders on their teams to follow!

I’ve worked closely with one of the ELETT group members for several years. And while the total number of team members is nearly four times higher than it was just five years ago, it hasn’t always been smooth sailing. I’ve never seen the owner waiver in how he casts the vision for the organization or in his approach to serving every employee in the organization. That said, his message hasn’t always been carried the same way by all the folks who have surrounded him in leadership roles…

Regardless of the specific topic we work through in our quarterly executive group sessions, we tie each one back to the importance of ensuring that it does not stop with the individual in that group; they need to be very intentional about making sure that message cascades to each level of leadership within their teams! Over the last several months, I’ve see the business owner I mentioned above build multiple additional steps into his approach with the key leaders on his to so that the message each of them are sending to their respective teams falls right in line with his vision for the organization - rather than each department drifting wherever their sails carry them…

When all the leaders in any given organization begin to use the same map, and final destination, to plot even their short term department level courses, providing the strategic leadership examples each team member can buy-in and commit to becomes so much simpler! Next time, we’ll start looking at some of the things our team members can actually see in our behavior as we begin to live out those examples…