Strategic Leadership - Raise The Bar For More Effective Strategic Leadership in The Middle of The Organization

Raise The Bar For More Effective Strategic Leadership in The Middle of The Organization

For many middle managers, participating effectively in the strategy development process is as much a question of training as it is doing. Building understanding and skills on topics such as the vocabulary and toolset, marketplace dynamics and the associated ambiguity, strategy story telling and their own individual strategic leadership strengths and weaknesses are all aspects of a process that can ignite a sense of understanding and commitment across the middle of the organization in a way that leverages the human fabric.

A key insight that drives this outcome is the recognition that most middle managers regardless of cultural background want to commit to something and belong to something that is more than who they are as individuals. It is the leader’s job to give managers the opportunities in which they can make such commitments. In all instances, providing the settings for these individuals includes asking them to be story tellers of the organizational strategy to those around them. Doing this requires these middle managers to understand and embrace both the analytical and human dimensions of the strategy making. It also creates a much smarter and more prepared middle manager that has publicly committed to the strategy and is in a much stronger position to make local decisions as the strategy evolves.

Localize the strategy story at the lower levels of the organization and engage these levels with the question, “What does this mean for me and my team?”

While front line supervisors and their teams in most instances are the largest portion of the population, the strategy making work to be done with this group is relatively simple. Their needs center largely on context, community and clarity. Engaging this group in a discussion of the basic business model and the organizational strategy provides critical context and gives meaning to their work. Their participation in shaping the local strategy builds understanding and ownership and a sense of partnership with the larger organization.

Strategy making with this group begins with the organization’s strategy story. Using middle managers in this role allows these individuals to raise their own strategic leadership bar. And it is through these middle managers that the organizational story becomes more accessible in those settings and situations that they know much more intimately than senior managers.

Ultimately, the strategy only comes alive and communities are built when it is used to set the broad context and is followed by a much more detailed local discussion addressing the question, “What does this mean for me and my team?” The combination of the analytical and human dimensions applied to this group provides a platform of understanding among the rank and file for what the strategy is, what it means to them and why it needs to continue to evolve over time. This in turn increases the willingness of this critically important but difficult to reach population to recognize the inevitable changes in strategy as markers of leadership success rather than leadership failure and in the process it builds and strengthens organizational agility.