A day in the life of a strategist
By: Dr. José Méndez Cruz
Enterprises have different types of leaders with a variety of cultures, stages, and growth levels. In order to reach the organizational goals these leaders depend on smart and versatile tactics to capture the biggest amount of followers. These same leaders turn those followers into drivers aligned towards organizational goals.
As we can see, the concept of a leader has evolved. We don't talk anymore about those who motivate, manage or train, nowadays the modern leader is a strategist. The strategist is who develops success tools and proactive plans towards the organizational well-being and the workforce. This strategist is who has the consciousness of the risks, limits, advantages and disadvantages in every step he takes.
A day in the strategist's life should be composed of measurable objectives, monitoring, and analyzing key performance indicators (KPIs), the development and follow up of the organizational culture goals and activities, following up on action plans, study, and validation of the return of investment (ROI), study of the needs and rewards plans, among others.
Some of the characteristics that we can point out of a strategist are:
- They are focused on vision and action plans
- They manage social stigmatization effectively
- They know the right timing for decision making
- They understand the difference between dreams and risks
- They are not afraid of change
In order to be able to reach all these characteristics we need direction, discipline, practice, counseling and determination. As a leader you must do a self-evaluation to define what level and development you want to reach. Also, you must develop personal and organizational tools to reach full strategic capacity. From an organizational point of view whoever wants to become a strategist should cultivate the educational areas of their business field, organizational culture, and the employee experience. Internally the leader should increase his capacities of adaptability, planning, creativity and management.
After looking through the day in the life of a strategist we could understand the importance of evolving and increasing our capabilities to be able to deliver a desired outcome. The leader is not limited to being an observer and to lead by example anymore, it means much more. With globalization and technology, we are expecting a leader that delivers successful organizational goals even though we have more challenges.
These challenges include people more educated with more access to the world and therefore more available options for a product or services which translate into a more competitive market. All these key concepts still need an important factor: Organizational culture. To turn your followers into strategy drivers you should create a common language, inspiring and creating a win-win organizational climate. As modern leaders we have the duty to offer the best practices to affect the company in a positive way. It is time to decide if you want to be a traditional leader or a future oriented strategist in the journey to success. Keep going!