Strategic Planning and Leadership – The Critical Link

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The small group of business owners were enjoying lunch and discussing the various issues that always affect business owners. In response to a question I mentioned the importance of a solid strategic plan. To illustrate how critical it was to have a good mission statement and to ensure everyone in the company understands that mission and their part in it, I asked them to go back to their businesses and ask why people work there and what they do that contributes to the success of the business.

One of the group members thought a minute and said, “Wow! I’m not sure I can really answer that.”

There’s a critical link between strategic planning and leadership. As a leader, you want to improve your operations and efficiency. You want your employees to be more engaged and feel at least some ownership of their part of that operation. The plan helps you do that by keeping everyone focused on what’s important.

As leaders you have a lot of those issues Stephan Covey called urgent but not important and it’s very easy to let those issues sidetrack you. When the mission and goals are clearly stated and when people at all levels of the company understand the mission and goals and their part in achieving them, they will stay more focused on what’s important to the company’s success.

But that will not happen, and the plan will not be effective unless the company’s most senior leadership embraces it as the basis for all their actions. A few pages in a plan will not mean a whole lot if that’s all they are. To be effective, the strategic plan must be embraced as the fundamental document for the company and therefore, the foundation for everyone’s efforts. When contemplating other tasks such as marketing or operations, leaders have a guide to keep their efforts on track.

Too often I’ve seen organizations that develop a strategic plan, but then don’t fully implement it. They say things like, “We just haven’t had time to get to it.” My question for them is, “What is more important than the plan you developed that should be the bedrock of the organization? Did you waste time writing a bad plan, or are you wasting time because you’re not following the plan you created.”

Strategic planning and leadership must be inextricably linked.

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