NOW IS THE TIME TO TAKE STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP

Are you a strategic leader? A strategic leader has a vision and shares that vision. He or she inspires goals and timetables to achieve that vision. When I speak with my Westchester County NY business leaders about traits that make a good leader no one can agree. However, they all agree that a leader must have vision. That is to say that they are strategic.

All successful strategic leaders must be able to set goals and achieve results.

Here is a results-based model of leadership proven to produce success.  

It begins with setting goals through your organization's strategic plan that are focused on your vision. In this process you define the desired results from your team members. It continues by aligning the people and the processes to ensure its realization. The goal is to have all your operations linked to the plan. Then virtually everything that happens should work toward achieving that Plan (Vision).

Once you accept this “results based leadership model,” you must next commit to leadership development processes that aggressively grow people to achieve the strategic direction of your company.

One of the single biggest reasons why leaders fail to lead is the absence of effective leadership development processes that ALLOW them to lead! To effectively lead you must create the leadership development processes that are purposely designed to incorporate that clear strategic direction for your company.

Your first step as the leader is to create alignment between the goals of the individual workers and the overall vision of the company. When that happens, positive results are more likely to occur. To do that you must:

Establish a Vision Statement - Who or Where You Want Your Company to be in the Future (about 3 to 5 year range).

Establish a Mission Statement - What must be done in one year to move toward achieving the Vision.

Create Critical Success Factors - Four to eight items that are necessary and sufficient to achieve the mission.

Establish goals that are necessary and sufficient to accomplish the critical success factors.

Offer a specific action plan to accomplish the goals - WHO does WHAT by WHEN.

Next you must engage every team member to:

• Understand his or her action steps to accomplish the vision.
• Get and use the support of the required resources.
• Have processes in place that ensure productivity, innovation, and speed.
• Create, execute, and measure specific goals supportive of the mission.

Then and only then is the organization aligned and is truly able to succeed. Many leaders of companies as well as small business owners fail to use this process. In some cases, the leader holds control and delegates responsibility. This might work in some cases but if you want your organization to grow you must empower the team. Only then will the sales and profits of your organization grow to their fullest potential.

Have you worked on a Strategic Plan? Do you need help?

Contact us to learn more

or call 914-953-4458.