Strategic Thinking and Planning
Along with establishing the vision for an organisation, a leader needs to articluate the underlying goals and set out, at a high-level, how these will be achieved. Therefore, a leader will need to be involved in strategic thinking, action planning, horizon scanning and preparing the organisation for change.
This section provides information on the key skills involved in setting strategy, planning and managing risk.
Strategic thinking and planning
In essence, strategy is about implementing change. To ensure that the 'right' change is identified and implemented, a leader will need to be strategic in her thinking. Effective strategic development has three distinct phases: analysis; identifying and selecting options; and implementation.
As part of the analysis stage, a leader will need to consider the organisation's purpose (i.e. strategic aim); the environment in which the organisation is operating; and the organisation's capabilities in terms of resources and competencies. It would be common practice at this point for leaders to conduct an examination of an organisation's external and internal enviroments using a PESTLE and SWOT analysis respectively.
During the second step, a leader considers the strategic choices and evaluates this options. This process is known as strategic choice and deals with the decisions about the future of the organisation and sets how it will respond to the influences and conditions identified as part of the initial analysis.
The final stage is the implementation of the strategic options agreed in the second phase. The leader must set out in the implementation plan which sets the core strategic aim; allocates actions to specific owners; and establishes how deliverables will be measured.
The following resources provide further information, tools and examples on setting organisational strategy:
Change management
To be a successful leader means also having to be a leader of change. It would be unwise for a leader to underestimate the complexity of implementing change and the impact it can have at all levels and areas across an organisation.
Successfully leading change requires a broad range of essential skills, which can be broadly grouped under the following six headings:
- Vision: to picture an ideal future state for the organisation.
- Coalition Building: to bring together senior management and get buy-in for your ideas.
- Communication Skills: to keep everyone informed, engaged and committed to the change, as well as negotiating and influencing others as necessary.
- Interpersonal Skills: to inspire people and bring them together.
- Motivation: to drive people through the change process.
- Big Picture: to keep the overall goals in mind and remain adaptable within changing circumstances.
It is also critical for a leader to understand the psychology behind people's reactions to change, which can help in the development of coping and resilience strategies and plans.
The following resources offer further guidance on change management models, tools for managing change and preparing your organisation for change:
See also the area in the Practical skills and knowledge section.
Planning for leaders
Leaders are generally not involved with day-to-day operational-level planning or project management; however, a leader does need to consider planning at a strategic level. This type of planning would be looking at the context and conditions A technique for carrying out this type of planning is known as scenario planning.
The ability to plan ahead has always been important for organisations. However, rapid political, environmental and technological changes mean that long-term business forecasts are increasingly difficult to make. Scenario planning can help, by enabling organisations to model a series of potential futures, and to modify their future plans according to the most feasible scenarios.
Managing risk
Risk management is otherwise known as the art of working out what could possibly go wrong, and doing something about it.
Like strategic thinking, it is often viewed as a black art, but again, it is actually fairly straightforward. The key is to be clear about how catastrophic and/or likely any particular risk is, and focus your attention on those that are most likely to cause the most problems. Our page on Risk Management explains more.