Natural born leaders

Jean-Luc Ambrosi

  • Author, marketer
Jean-Luc Ambrosi is an award winning marketer and recognised expert in branding and customer relationship management. He is the author of the new book, Branding to Differ, a strategic and practical guide on how to build and manage a successful brand.


Many business and marketing managers progressing to leadership positions face evolving their focus from operational matters to strategic decision making and planning.

We all know that people excelling at execution will not always succeed at strategy building or strategic decision making. So it begs the question: Can you learn to be a strategist or is it a skill you are born with?

Many research papers argue a lack of strategic thinking by senior managers is often a major shortcoming in organisations. With all the tools, training and methods available to managers today, this points to the fact that while the strategic process can be learned, the practice of strategy requires a natural incline to really succeed at it.

Of course, not all strategy makers are born the same, and there are many form of strategy building.  I am referring to the capacity to see forward, build visions and roadmaps. It is also important to differentiate strategic thinking from strategic planning, the latter being correlated to analytics decision based and organising rather than visioning. 

And this is often what is really required from managers. While great visionaries can be amazing leaders, they are the exception rather than the norm.

Unfortunately, people in organisations hold the belief strategic thinking sits above execution in some form of ‘royal’ hierarchy. This is the core of the issue: Managers want to be perceived as being ‘strategic thinkers’ because of the belief that true leaders are ‘strategic’, therefore equating leadership and strategy.

These are different skill sets and shouldn’t be confused. Leading people and creating visions are vastly different and originate from different parts of the cortex.

Take a deep look at your experience with leadership teams and you will find most leaders are not strategic thinkers; their core skills lie in driving people, driving execution and only sometimes in strategy. So the correlation between strategy and leadership falls short.

So when managers want to climb the corporate ladder they may find that they can be successful if they support strategy as opposed to dictating it. Where they need to use their skills is in translating strategies into corporate visions and implementation paths.

What’s the lesson here? If strategy is not your forte, don’t fake it. Instead, leverage your skills to enhance, plan and lead its successful accomplishment, keeping in mind that brilliant strategies often fail due to poor execution.

Tags: marketing careers, leadership

Show Comments

Latest Whitepapers

More whitepapers

Latest Videos

More Videos

More Brand Posts

What are Chris Riddell's qualifications to talk about technology? What are the awards that Chris Riddell has won? I cannot seem to find ...

Tareq

Digital disruption isn’t disruption anymore: Why it’s time to refocus your business

Read more

Enterprisetalk

Mark

CMO's top 10 martech stories for the week - 9 June

Read more

Great e-commerce article!

Vadim Frost

CMO’s State of CX Leadership 2022 report finds the CX striving to align to business outcomes

Read more

Are you searching something related to Lottery and Lottery App then Agnito Technologies can be a help for you Agnito comes out as a true ...

jackson13

The Lottery Office CEO details journey into next-gen cross-channel campaign orchestration

Read more

Thorough testing and quality assurance are required for a bug-free Lottery Platform. I'm looking forward to dependability.

Ella Hall

The Lottery Office CEO details journey into next-gen cross-channel campaign orchestration

Read more

Blog Posts

Marketing prowess versus the enigma of the metaverse

Flash back to the classic film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Television-obsessed Mike insists on becoming the first person to be ‘sent by Wonkavision’, dematerialising on one end, pixel by pixel, and materialising in another space. His cinematic dreams are realised thanks to rash decisions as he is shrunken down to fit the digital universe, followed by a trip to the taffy puller to return to normal size.

Liz Miller

VP, Constellation Research

Why Excellent Leadership Begins with Vertical Growth

Why is it there is no shortage of leadership development materials, yet outstanding leadership is so rare? Despite having access to so many leadership principles, tools, systems and processes, why is it so hard to develop and improve as a leader?

Michael Bunting

Author, leadership expert

More than money talks in sports sponsorship

As a nation united by sport, brands are beginning to learn money alone won’t talk without aligned values and action. If recent events with major leagues and their players have shown us anything, it’s the next generation of athletes are standing by what they believe in – and they won’t let their values be superseded by money.

Simone Waugh

Managing Director, Publicis Queensland

Sign in