How to Develop the Best Leadership Mindset to Execute Your Strategy Successful strategy implementation hinges not on perfect plans, but on leaders addressing the hidden psychological and cultural barriers within their organization that often sabotage execution.
By Andrea Olson Edited by Micah Zimmerman
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In 1996, Robert Kaplan and David Norton identified the four barriers to effective strategy implementation: vision, people, management and resources. While these elements are essential, most leaders overlook the gap between employees' perceptions and reality.
In a survey by the Economist of C-suite executives 2013, 88% said executing strategic initiatives successfully is "essential" or "very important" for their organizations' competitiveness. 61% of those same executives acknowledged their teams consistently fall short in bridging the gap between strategy formulation and its day-to-day implementation. However, a recent study by Gartner in 2023 identified three causes — unclear responsibilities (34%), inability to cascade objectives (22%), and not having defined priorities (14%).
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But arguably, every organization tries to specify, communicate and disseminate their strategy effectively. If successful strategy implementation has been a persistent issue for the last 25 years, are leaders simply not communicating well enough? Or does the intrinsic problem lie elsewhere?
Taking a new mindset
Most strategy leadership guidance focuses on implementation methods, such as adaptive, agile, growth-oriented and innovation-centric approaches. However, none of these factors consider a company's culture, people dynamics or history with strategic change, which all influence the ability to execute effectively. Instead of hyper-focusing on the logistical aspects of execution, leaders need to explore and address the psychological ones. This requires adopting a contextual mindset rather than an operational one.
A contextual mindset involves two things: 1) understanding the environment in which the strategy will live and operate, and 2) understanding what cultural perceptions, behaviors, and biases will hinder the strategy's ability to succeed. This mindset allows leaders to identify hidden obstacles and influences on a strategy's implementation and address them before they take root.
Here's how to examine your own context and remove cognitive impediments to success:
Understand the environment in which the strategy lives and operates
Strategy does not exist in a bubble, and its environment influences the organization's acceptance of it. For instance, one of our clients was launching a strategy for the first time in company history. After months of work behind closed doors, the strategy introduction was met with reluctance, doubt and trepidation.
This wasn't because of a lack of communication but the organizational environment. For decades, the company had sustained a very rigid and hierarchical operation. Individual departments had little to no autonomy in decision-making. Even the smallest decisions had to be approved in advance by a steering committee. This created a 'wait-and-see' mode with the strategy, where employees and managers sat tight for explicit direction from leadership rather than acting.
Exploring your organizational context and identifying potential strategy impediments is important. Review your existing policies, procedures and organizational structure. What creates barriers to action and decision-making for employees? What would create confusion or cause second-guessing?
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Understand the cognitive obstacles
Any organizational pain from previous strategies is never fully forgotten. This is referred to as historical baggage — past experiences, perceptions and attitudes that influence the acceptance of change. These cognitive obstacles can stall implementation before a new strategy is even introduced.
For example, another one of our clients recently developed a new corporate strategy. Their department leaders were tasked with getting their teams up to speed, building excitement and providing implementation guidance for their areas. However, this strategy was the fifth iteration in two years. Employees saw it as simply a fly-by-night plan. They already believed it would be no different than the unsuccessful strategies that came before it. People resisted buy-in for fear of investing effort into something that would change again in a matter of months.
This is why you need to examine your company's relationship with strategy — determining what has occurred in the past, the results of those efforts, and collective sentiment. Use a simple combination of surveys and qualitative interviews with managers and staff. What are people's past experiences with strategy implementation? What has caused issues before, and why did those problems occur?
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Address the unspoken doubts and elephants in the room
Once you have established a lay of the land, identify those concerns that came up repeatedly. Even if they seem illogical or petty, it is essential to proactively address these psychological barriers in a salient way prior to beginning your strategy implementation. The key is recognizing the issues, giving them legitimacy, and providing clear reasoning and solutions.
Returning to our previous example, why would this latest version of an ever-changing strategy differ? First, openly admit what occurred in the past. Second, provide real-life instances and examples, validating that the concern is fully understood. Third, illustrate key differences that confirm and authenticate a change in the current context. In this case, the entrance of a new competitor, along with changes in key executive personnel, were the catalysts for a renewed strategy commitment.
Follow through with the necessary change
All of this will be perceived as lip service if your hidden barriers aren't genuinely addressed. However, some barriers may be more complicated to fix than others. For example, say through your examination, a specific person in the company is mentioned who has consistently derailed progress in the past. Depending on the individual and their role, there may be limitations in moving them or removing them. But this doesn't mean you ignore the problem and hope employees don't notice.
You may need time to determine a permanent solution, which might require multiple discussions, meetings, training, or the hiring of additional personnel. Rather than sustaining radio silence with employees until the situation is fully handled, provide a short-term stopgap. This could be as simple as changing an approval process or temporarily shifting a person's responsibilities.
It's insufficient to share your strategy's goals and objectives and hope implementation will succeed. Instead, focus on recognizing and addressing the historical context influencing employee behaviors and mindsets. This way, leaders can build legitimacy and shift perceptions by eliminating hidden mental barriers, clearing the way for strategy implementation to take flight.
