I’ve been reading about leadership principles (and trying to put them into practice) for almost three decades. Many of the books I’ve read rightly emphasize the importance of strategy. A strategy is like a transmission – it’s what takes the energy of the engine (the mission or vision) and turns it into forward motion. These books will often offer guidance on what goes into developing a good strategy.
What is unwritten but often implied is that if you come up with the right strategy, you will accomplish your mission. No doubt, some of this comes from my own inner compulsion (obsession?) to “get it right” (as in, “develop the very best one”.) But the message still comes across strong: Develop the right strategy and you’ll succeed.
Then I read about the various strategies that successful organization use, and I discover that none of them are the same. Not even organizations with very similar missions located in the same areas seem to have the same strategy. In fact, sometimes they are very different.
My conclusion? There is no “right” strategy (as in the exclusive one that brings about success.) Rather, what matters, is that you have a strategy, and that your strategy is energetically implemented and systematically tweaked as it plays out in the real world. This is what I find successful organizations all have in common: they have, implement and tweak strategies.
Yes, we should think carefully about our strategy. Yes, some strategies are poor because they don’t take into account factors like contemporary culture, customer preferences and biases, organizational strengths and company values. But here’s what matters most: come up with a reasonable strategy and USE IT! You’ll learn as you go, and your strategy will get better over time. It is only as you actually implement a strategy that you start to move forward toward your goals.
And getting an organization moving forward toward goals is the leader’s responsibility.
