Most companies have executives with operational skills necessary to maintain the routine, the company’s day-to-day. However, these companies experience a gap when it comes to identifying leaders who can address more complex problems. Problems involving a high degree of uncertainty require the presence of a strategic leader.

Strategic leadership is a form of leadership in which executives, using different management styles, develop a vision for the company that allows it to adapt to environmental changes, remaining competitive in a changing economic and technological environment. Unlike bureaucratic leadership, a leadership style characterized by a more formal, more rigid style, strategic leadership aims to streamline processes, increase productivity, promote innovation, and cultivate an environment that encourages employees to be productive, independent, and to leverage their own ideas and skills.

Strategic leadership is, therefore, the ability of a leader to visualize, plan, guide, and optimize resources at their disposal to execute strategies efficiently and effectively.

Strategic leaders align their strategic plan with strategic management. Employees respect their leadership role and overview, as they strive to realize their vision.

The main characteristics of an effective strategic leader include loyalty to the company’s vision, judicious use of power, transparency, effective communication, conflict resolution, ability to delegate, love of work, compassion and empathy for others, and self-awareness.

According to the article “Strategic Leadership: The Essential Skills,” written by Paul J. H. Schoemaker, Steve Krupp, and Samantha Howland and published in 2013 in the Harvard Business Review, strategic leadership competencies include what the authors call the six essential skills:

• Anticipate: Collect information from a wide range of sources inside and outside the sector or company to anticipate the movements of competitors to new initiatives or products.
• Challenge: Visualize and reformulate a problem from various points of view to identify and understand its causes.
• Interpret: Show curiosity and openness by testing various work hypotheses and involving others in decision-making before reaching a conclusion.
• Decide: When making decisions analyze long-term investments for growth together with short-term pressure for results, as well as risks and compensation for customers and other stakeholders.
• Align: Examine the incentives and tolerance of stakeholders for change and identify conflicting interests.
• Learn: Share cases of success and failure to stimulate learning. Review decisions after they have been made, when evidence suggests alternatives might have been preferable.

In conclusion, it is important to develop a culture in which learning is valued and mistakes are seen as learning opportunities. Becoming a strategic leader means identifying your weaknesses in these six skills areas and correcting them.