I’ve identified 8 essential leadership skills for engineers and technical professionals, and in this post I’ll describe the 3 that can be grouped under Strategic Leadership, including synonyms and components that fall under them. The broader framework is discussed in a prior post, wherein I define the 3 major groups to be Leadership Identity, Empowering the Team, and Strategic Leadership.
What is Strategic Leadership?
Well, basically there’s two kinds of leadership: Strategic and Tactical. The prime difference is time scale. Tactical is reacting to the present reality and perhaps slightly ahead. Strategy looks further into the future. Tactical leadership is important, but its on the edge of crisis management.
If you’re leading well, crises don’t happen (often), but if they do you already have the framework in place to respond. A good strategy includes contingencies. Similarly, good strategic leadership lays the groundwork for effective tactical response. The groundwork includes a clear vision, pathways to ingenuity, and a sphere of influence.
Vision
On the surface, Leadership Vision is simple. Where are you leading the organization? Where are you going? Hopefully these are compatible. The former must be clearly communicated to the team and its stakeholders.
Below the surface, Leadership Vision is not easy. First, there’s the whole clear communication aspect. But what about the direction? Everything’s always changing. The direction changes too. However, if you want to go East, the direction should stay close to 90 degrees (compass heading) on average, and ideally always within 0 and 180 (North and South), but sometimes a little West happens. Compromise, flexibility, resilience, and all. Two steps forward and one step back is a way to get there. Yet you must be clear on why the steps back are necessary and ok, and probably need to communicate that too.
Developing a vision takes time, deliberation, and effort.You need to know the environment and how it may change. You need to know the vision and goals of adjacent organizations. Ideas need to be carefully considered and stress-tested. Lean on mentors, senior contributors, and colleagues. You don’t have to do this alone. But you do have to do it.
Ingenuity
Here we go with the creativity element of leadership. Although you’ll probably recognize creativity comes in other areas too (like immediately above in Vision development). As I’ve said elsewhere, the Leadership Elements are intertwined, and as you deliberately improve some, others will improve collaterally.
Many engineers and technical professionals have been told, very unfortunately, that they’re not creative. In high school, you were good in math and science, and didn’t spend much time making art, so you’re not creative. That’s wrong! Solving problems is inherently creative. If something hasn’t been done before, figuring out how to do it is the definition of creating. Even if others have done it before, but you haven’t, it’s creative. So start by acknowledging that you are creative.
As a leader, the problems you’re solving can be very different than the problems you solved as an engineer. Rather than ‘how do I make this thing work,’ it’s ‘how do I get people to work with me.’ Curiosity is a really good tool to use in both situations. Why doesn’t it work? What is the obstacle in their way? What might motivate them? Leaders must be inquisitive.
Leaders rarely encounter carbon-copy situations. As we know, the world is dynamic. So we must be constantly innovating. The size and frequency of innovations are inversely related – big innovations rarely happen (and are rarely needed), but small innovations happen all the time. Be aware of which is needed and be aware of which you’re working on. Start with simple, and move outwards as needed. And use your resources!
Influence
Leaders need to be able to influence others, plain and simple. Being able to convince your team to do what you want is clearly part of the role. Equally, though, is influencing other leaders to follow your path, or to work in a way that’s compatible with your vision. Similarly, influencing stakeholders that where you’re leading will get them where they want to go.
Like several other leadership elements, having healthy relationships is essential to being able to influence. So the time to set the stage for influence is before you need it. Healthy, open, and respectful communications go a long way in this direction.
Another important aspect of influencing is being clear about and sharing your motivations. What’s behind your Vision? Do others understand it? Do they support it? Hopefully your motivation in a particular situation will be consistent with your stances and approaches in other situations. If not, be prepared to work through confusion. Which is ok, but you need to understand why you’re changing things up, and if you’re not at least why others might think you are.
Finally, nearly every act of influence requires negotiation. Unless where you want to go is plainly obvious to everyone else, you will need to give a little to get what you want. Sometimes this is information and justification, sometimes is it more tangible. Negotiation is a skill that not many technical people have developed, but it can be learned and there are easily-digestible frameworks. It is something that you can study and start practicing anytime.
Where are You?
So that’s it. The major components of Strategic Leadership are Vision, Ingenuity, and Influence. They feed into each other. Developing a vision requires creative thought, and influence gets the vision out to your audience so you can lead strategically. Reflect on where you are on these characteristics, and I’m here if you’d like help evaluating or improving.