Our last two posts gave a recap and summary of some of the topics discussed during the chat along with some tips. In this post, however, we hope to provide you with more actionable tips to help you or your employees be a more strategic leader.
After the event commenced, we wanted to keep the discussion active, so we asked our Sounding Board coaches what advice they give their coaching clients on being more strategic. Below is the advice they shared with us that have had a big impact on their clients.
- Be thoughtful about when to Ask vs. Tell. A general rule of thumb is to ask down the org chart and tell up. It’s a little counter intuitive, but it can create a real shift in thinking strategically and communicating your point of view to upper management vs being more collaborative and enlisting input and buy-in from their team.
- Make the distinction between strategic and tactical. You have to remind managers that they’re a boss now and the higher up the ladder they are, the more important it is to focus on strategic and delegate tactical.
- As a manager you have greater opportunity to impact people. Raise the difference between intent and impact with a simple example, “My intent was clear communication. The impact it had was it created uncertainty within your team.” You role as a manager is to close that gap so your intent translates to the impact you want.
- Use the Urgent/Important Matrix (Eisenhower Matrix). It’s easy to implement and powerful in helping people see where they are spending their time.
To learn more about Sounding Board and how we combine best-in-class coaching with technology to help companies grow their next generation of strategic leaders, visit our website and request a demo.
