Soaring Up and Swooping Down
How often do you live in the details, knowing it's important to be strategic but not sure where to fit that in?
Three situations popped up this week that made me focus on this topic:
During my Vistage Trusted Advisors group this week, this topic emerged in discussing making progress on the big goals vs. fighting the day-to-day fires.
I then saw a variation of the topic in a Facebook Group where an individual was getting feedback that they needed to be "more strategic" to be viewed as ready for promotion.
One of my clients was working on preparing for an upcoming presentation but was getting stuck on the details vs. focusing on the story they wanted to tell.
For me, these are all variations of the challenge that all leaders face: balancing strategic and operational leadership.
Whether you run your own organization or you're an employee within an organization, you can't be successful unless you can get things done. And since you probably love doing the work, it's easy to get lost in it when things are going well or fighting the fires when things aren't working as planned.
The challenge comes because leaders also need to look ahead, see what's coming around the corner, and make time to shape and plan the big initiatives. This requires intentionality in how you manage your time and energy. If you're not including these items on your calendar—strategy, planning, and reflection—THEY WON'T GET DONE! We do what our calendar gives us space to do.
When I settled on the name Canopy Strategies, the key message was that we help you zoom out from the day-to-day so that you can focus on where you need to go and how you need to get there. One of my colleagues articulated this as diving down into your business, coming back up to look at the big picture, and then diving back down again.
We can't live in just one of those worlds if we want to lead an organization.
To be successful in today's world, we need to be both operational and strategic leaders. If one of them is not a natural strength, we need to make sure we're surrounded and supported by those who fill that capability gap.
Are you struggling with making time for the more strategic part of your job? If you're ready to change that, let's talk.