3 Things Leaders Don’t Do and Should

Posted under Leadership, The Zen of Business ☯ June 8th, 2009

Everyday, leaders develop awesome strategies that have all the right stuff to blow the roof off their goals. There are plenty of leaders who have top-notch leadership skills to develop a team of employees that collaborates like a symphony and works hard to get results. So with all those things going for great leaders, why don’t more strategies succeed?

Often those who develop strategies are not the same people who are responsible for executing them. How do you ensure that your strategy will be executed well by others?

You take specific steps to ensure your strategy has meaning for the people who will make it happen. Here are 3 crucial steps leaders often miss that they should take before executing strategy:

1. Develop A Focused Communication Plan

When you communicate your strategy to those who need to make it happen, it may be the first time they have ever heard your approach. Build all the questions, concerns and second thoughts you worked through as you developed the strategy into your communications. Otherwise, you’ll hit a roadblock when others bring up those same issues.

So, if you’d like your team to focus their energy on executing your strategy instead of second guessing it, answer those questions up front.

  • Provide the basics on What, Why, Who, When and How in that order.
  • Point out what IS changing and what IS NOT changing.
  • Be transparent and call out the risks and mitigants to the strategy’s success up front.
  • Tell your team how this strategy helps them achieve their goals and what’s in it for them.
  • Finally, lay out how this strategy will make a difference for your external customer. If you can’t, you may want to think again about what your intended outcomes really are. Be clear about how this improves your customer’s experience of your brand and values.

2. Recruit Informal Leaders to Promote and Support The Strategy

Identify who your influencers are within your organization. This isn’t the time to rely on hierarchical structure. Now’s the time to talk to those who are the informal leaders among your teams – the people who are at the hub of the brainstorming, the conversations and the information to get things done.

Share the communication plan with them and ask them to support the strategy. If you don’t connect with them first or they don’t buy into your strategy, they will continue to be at the hub of information but without helping your strategy succeed.

Informal leaders can make or break the success of your strategy.

3. Clarify Roles

Be sure that everyone knows what his or her role is in making the strategy happen. Identify the informal leaders publicly. Clarify the executive sponsors. Let people know who controls the budget for implementation and who develops the action plan.

Finally, don’t forget to clarify for all associates how they’ll each play a role in the success of the strategy through their day-to-day work. Go back to your communication plan!

Now you’re ready to begin executing the strategy. Give your strategy meaning to those who mean the most!

About the author

Susan Zelinski is an HR consultant with 20+ years experience. Contact Susan on Twitter: @SusanZelinski, e-mail, and LinkedIn. If you’d like to learn more, read Susan’s bio.

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2 comments

  1. Mike Henry says…

    Nice post Susan. Thanks. I agree these steps are required. They naturally follow strategy definition in order for change to be successful.

    However, do you think the steps are aided or simplified if you collaborate with your team while developing the strategy? That’s just natural for me because I like to formulate strategy with the team, and I know that’s not everyone’s cup of tea. I just find that building the strategy from the team up simplifies those first two steps.

    Mike…

  2. Susan Zelinski ☯ says…

    Hi Mike,

    I agree with you that when you’re able, the more collaboration you have with your team during the strategy design stage, the more on-board they’ll be from the get go. On a department/product/or small firm basis I believe this is a feasible option and definitely the way to go. Thanks for pointing it out.

    When dealing with a larger organization and strategies that cover an entire enterprise, getting everyone who will have to change the way they work, or serve the customer differently involved during the design phase can be close to – if not – impossible.

    Examples that were on my mind as I wrote this post were a new Customer Service Strategy for a Fortune 500 or the renovation of a business function like IT across multiple business units.

    It’s in these circumstances that the steps in this post become critical. Often, when strategies are implemented on this scale, chances increase that the majority of associates who will be impacted don’t receive the information they need to perform to the strategy.

    I think your call-out regarding collaboration can be extended once the communication plan is rolled out to each business unit. Once leaders translate the strategy for those who have to make it happen, they have a great opportunity to work directly with associates in determining how best to implement.

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