The Key 4 Steps to Aligning Strategy to Vision

What is your leadership strength? Is it vision? Is it strategy?

Many of us may have strength in one are of leadership and that is where we place our focus and our efforts- if it’s easy we will do it. However a great leader is able to draw on their natural abilities and strengths while balancing with areas that may have to be developed.

A great vision has a strategy towards implementation and a great strategy has to drive towards a compelling vision. When working to build a new strategic direction there needs to be an overall vision and then there needs to be four components that are balanced with logical actions and emotional actions. People take inspired action when they feel they are heading in a logical direction and when they have an emotional connection to the direction.

An aligned strategic vision is comprised of the following:

1. Outline the vision and strategy- which is a logical action
2. Engage and create excitement- which is an emotional action
3. Develop timeline, skill development and accountability- which is a logical action
4. Energy, commitment and visibility- an emotional action

Every strong strategic plan appeals to both the logical and the emotional to increase levels of buy in and integration within the organization. Many leaders set strategy based on their leadership style and may not consider the emotional factor in the strategy. Or an emotional leader may focus more on feelings than on logic and sideline the strategy altogether.

The best process for a new strategic direction is to create logical rationale for the direction and get buy-in, create excitement by having a leadership retreat (preferably facilitated professionally) and gaining leadership energy behind the direction, then sharing the logic and emotion company wide through face to face, webinars, Skype, phone meetings and build next logical steps such as timeline, deliverables etc. and finally the vision and strategy need to continue momentum, visibility and importance.

Master leaders have high levels of self awareness and know that they must appeal to a multitude of personality needs and generational perspectives. A well balanced vision and strategy factors the variety of needs of the employees and seeks to address those needs.

In the end, you have a strong vision and strategy that leads to innovation and growth.