Send to KindleWhy Leaders Need Strategic Plans
Should you have a strategic plan? Unless you are leading a large organization, you may be thinking you don’t need a strategic plan, or that such planning is not your responsibility.
Think again!
If you are responsible for any part of an organization, you should create a strategic plan, even if the levels above you have not.
Here’s why.
The people in your part of the organization look to you to set the course and pace. One of the biggest reasons employees are not engaged is that leaders haven’t asked them to be. Those leaders haven’t clearly shown their workers the organization’s mission and how they are important to accomplishing that mission. They don’t know the specific goals the organization strives to reach and how they contribute to those goals.
That’s the beauty of a good strategic plan. It defines the way ahead for your workers, helping them see why they’re important to the organization.
The strategic plan has another benefit. It keeps leaders focused. In today’s world of information overload, unprecedented access to data, and ever growing outside interference, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for leaders to maintain focus on what the organization is really trying to accomplish. When there is a good strategic plan and senior leadership uses that plan as the fundamental guide for everything else, it provides a focus point for the organization’s leaders.
When something demands a leader’s attention, he or she can refer to the strategic plan to determine if this new time-eater relates to the mission and will help the organization achieve its goals. If not, and if it still must be done, assign it a low priority or delegate it.
Good leaders not only create good strategic plans, they use them as the basic foundation for everything the organization does.
