Strategic Leadership or Strategic Management?

A while back I heard Carly Fiorina differentiate managing from leading by saying, “Managers produce results within existing constraints and conditions. Leaders change or challenge existing constraints or conditions.” As I closed the last post that worked through a practical approach we can take to organizational development, I promised that this post would focus on strategic management and leadership. Before we really dive into that though, let me make something very clear: I’ve never seen a scenario where a business owner or CEO has had the luxury of choosing between managing the details or their organization and leading the overall progress by casting a clear vision. Both are critical if we want to chart the course AND actually ensure the team stays the course…

All that said, strategic management and leadership doesn’t rest solely in the lap of the business owner or CEO. An article I read from Michigan State University said it this way: 

“True strategic leadership should not just come from the C-suite. It needs to happen at every level of an organization—at the top, where strategy for a number of business units is formulated over a given time period; in the middle, where top-down strategy is translated into a business unit or regional strategy and goals are created; and at the department level, where the business unit strategy goals are translated into a number of individual objectives which are executed.”

The more engagement we can get in driving toward the organization’s goals, the better our chances will be of actually sticking to the course that’s been charted! While the business owner or CEO is nearly always the one responsible for developing a clear picture of where they see the organization over the next 3, 5, or even 10 years, there’s still a significant need for that vision to be broken down into pieces that apply at every level and in every segment of the business. If we’re not intentional about helping each member of our team understand exactly how their daily tasks tie in with our bigger picture, it can be all too easy for them to just go through the motions - and that rarely achieves best-in-class results! Even then, the folks who hate details as much as I do still need to keep an eye on the details. That same article went on to say that “Strategic leadership provides the scope and direction to help drive success… A major part of this success is derived from effectively managing continuous change through improvements to both people and processes.”

I’ll say it again… When we’re responsible for the results of our organizations - or even a segment of that organization, we don’t have the luxury of choosing between leading (the people) and managing (the processes)! However, the vast majority of folks I’ve seen progress to the highest levels of their organizations have do so because of their expertise in managing processes - which was the primary reason Cindy and I created our Emerging Leader Development course and every other resource we’ve launched since; to provide those same folks with tools to help them become just as effective at leading people as they were with the more technical aspects of their job.

As we move forward here, we’ll start working through some strategic leadership examples we can apply at any level of our organizations. Until then, you might get some value from working through our new Servant Leadership quiz to see what your best next step might be. And by the way, we’ve included a free gift for anyone who finishes the quiz…