(EN) Ten principles of strategic leadership (PwC Study)

Александър Йосифов Лидерство

A 2015 PwC study of 6,000 senior executives revealed a critical companies‘ management deficit: “They lack people in positions of power with the know-how, experience, and confidence required to tackle what management scientists call “wicked problems”. Wicked problems are those that can’t be solved by a single command, they are unusual, different from everyday operational issues and need solutions that seem uncertain.Often they also require some kind of organizational transformation. What helps most in such situations is a strategic leadership approach.

I highly recommend the article based on the research of Jessica Leitch, David Lancefield and Mark Dawson members of PwC UK team who explain how the following 10 principles can help unlock the potential strategic leadership in different enterprises. As they say “These principles represent a combination of organizational systems and individual capabilities — the hardware and software of transformation.”

10 Principles of strategic leadership include:

Distribute responsibility – strategic leaders gain their skill through practice, and practice requires a fair amount of autonomy.
Be honest and open about information – when information is released to specific individuals only on a need-to-know basis, people have to make decisions in the dark.
Create multiple paths for raising and testing ideas – by setting up ways for people to bring their innovative thinking to the surface, you can help them learn to make the most of their own creativity.
Make it safe to fail – enshrine acceptance of failure — and willingness to admit failure early.
Provide access to other strategies – give potential strategic leaders the opportunity to meet and work with their peers across the organization
Develop opportunities for experienced-based learning – strategists need experience to live up to their potential. One vehicle for creating leadership experiences is the cross-functional “practice field,” (as Peter Senge calls it).
Hire for transformation – hiring decisions should be based on careful considerations of capabilities and experiences, and should aim for diversity to overcome the natural tendency of managers to select people much like themselves.
Bring your whole self to work – strategic leaders understand that to tackle the most demanding situations and problems, they need to draw on everything they have learned in their lives.
Find time to reflect – think about the problem in depth is important but so is the thinking about your thinking about the problem. Sounds confusing but without studying your own thinking about the situation the biases and assumptions put its decision at risk.
Recognize leadership development as an ongoing practice – strategists have the humility and intelligence to realize that their learning and development is never done, however experienced they may be.