Francis Wade | The downside of Lone Ranger leadership

Smart CEOs instinctively know something about game-changing decisions. They correctly conclude that such commitments require the creation of a unique context. But what exactly makes breakthrough strategic thinking different – and why do so many leaders get it wrong?

In almost all strategic planning projects I am part of, there’s a quiet conversation beforehand with the top leader: “Don’t dominate the discussion”. It’s not very precise, which means we sometimes have to intervene to ensure the right balance.

But why should you, a top executive, heed this advice?

After all, you think more about corporate strategy than your colleagues. You are also the only C-suiter who oversees all functions. As such, you alone make sure there is cohesion between departments.

So why would we advise you to be more quiet than usual in the design of game-changing strategy?

Consider that you and your team are already well-versed in emergency thinking. Every week or two, you gather to brainstorm solutions to immediate problems.

Like a general, you take the lead, act decisively, and hold colleagues accountable for tasks. Their job? To tackle urgent issues and report to the next meeting.

While each of them isn’t involved in all decisions, you alone are. As such, when you miss one of these regular sessions, things often slow down.

However, experience shows that game-changing strategic planning meetings should not follow this familiar script. Instead, the entire team needs to temporarily adopt a distinct ‘future back’ perspective, unlike the usual ‘present forward’ mindset so useful in problem-solving.

To foster this shift in gears, you need to turn off old skills and practices. Now it’s time to:

• Diagnose the current situation while resisting the temptation to rectify anything immediately;

• Uncover hard-to-see external patterns and trends, and surface problems, which may take decades to solve, not just days.

Trying to dominate the discussion as the leader interferes with this transformation from urgent fixes to long-term thinking. If you persist in the same-old approach, you will become the obstacle to creating a new context the company needs to move forward.

This isn’t easy to do, but why?

Embracing complexity

You may agree your regular weekly meetings are not the venue for making big decisions. Why?

Breakthrough decisions require a direct confrontation with the complexity in your business. In this respect, you are not special. Any company which is large enough to have a leadership team of specialists is complicated.

Most teams know this, and don’t try to discuss such difficult matters in a regular weekly meeting.

Instead, to make big, breakthrough decisions, set dedicated time aside to craft a different context. Use this special occasion to go deeper than ever before. You’ll find it’s the only way to uncover radical insights: the building blocks of game-changing strategy.

But this isn’t a matter of making a long wish-list. Or of writing or commissioning a report. Or hiring the right consultants to do your problem-solving.

These approaches hide complexity. So does an effort to dominate the proceedings. Instead, give up being the centre of attention, and do the following.

To tackle complexity as a team, you must aim for nothing less than breakthrough thinking. Start by crafting a vivid, detailed vision of your organisation 15 to 30 years into the future. Make it so specific that it forces you into bold new strategies.

This game-changing plan would be a hologram of commitments, in which decisions are multi-faceted and interdependent. Therefore, only a C-suite with all its members working together can create it.

Their group-level comprehension is the only way to select and combine just the right insights needed. Given the difficulty and importance of the task, this is the best form of team-building possible.

Unlike other kinds of exercises with ropes, ladders, and other props, this is not a simulation. The outputs of this strategy have real and immediate consequences. It’s a bit like making a U-Turn in an oil tanker.

What should your role be as the top leader?

If a powerful context is to emerge, then you must actively facilitate its creation. This may be an unfamiliar role. You might not feel comfortable stepping back. But giving birth to a new context represents the height of leadership skills.

The truth is, this is the only way to bring about a “Future Back” mindset at scale, maybe for the first time in your C-Suite.

If your team struggles to navigate today’s global disruptions, don’t double down on quick fixes. Instead, create a larger, future-focused context – one that fuels powerful, game-changing decisions.

Francis Wade is a management consultant and author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity. To search past columns on productivity, strategy and business processes, or give feedback, email: columns@fwconsulting.com