Making a Strategic Plan for Leadership

What is a strategic plan and how can it be used for personal development?

Strategy is the conceptual framework that produces tactics. When we get a strategy together – or a way to do something – it helps us get a clear idea of what the tactics can be to get us to where we want to go.

Here’s an example, in a business context using a car dealership as the use case:

• Strategy: sell to the cash-rich but capital-poor younger, professional market
• Tactics: offer loan agreements, sell the types of cars that are appropriate for this group, advertise in marketing materials that they read or listen to (magazines, television shows, podcasts, etc.)

(Actions are connected here, too, but for now, start by thinking about your personal development strategy vs. tactics.)

But let’s take it outside of a business (or non-profit) framework, and see if a business plan can apply to our personal development as well!

Step 1: If your strategy is focused on personal and/or professional growth, it may be helpful to step back a bit and really consider what “success” would look like.

It’s easy to think in non-measurable terms or emotion-backed statements like “I want others to see me as a leader,” or “I want to take on more responsibilities” but those just aren’t clear enough to map tactics – and later, actions – to the plan.

Instead, your strategic plan might be more measurable: “I want to be promoted within the next six months,” or “I want to make $2,500 a month via my side hustle, starting in 90 days.”

Once you do that, sit with it for a short while. Does it still sound fun? If it’s scary, is it the good kind of scared where your adrenaline is pumping and you can’t wait to start, or is your plan too far away from what you can reasonably achieve in the coming weeks and months?

Step 2: Understand what you can’t understand.

20:20 forward vision is no guarantee of future success, whether you’re mapping a business strategic plan OR a plan more focused on your personal and professional development.

There are questions you simply can’t answer right now:

• What will the market do next year?
• What will my competitors do next year?
• How will the economy fare?
• What new technological or legislative or social events will impact my industry in the next 12 months?

These and the thousand other questions that all of us use to start the strategic planning process are perfectly well and good as just that – starting points.

The mistake comes in how we respond to the answers. We often discover (too late) that we simply don’t have the capacity to do so.

Step 3: Consider your bandwidth — or more importantly, your “capacity deficit”.

As Les McKeown shares here, a capacity deficit can be caused by three main factors:

• Time (or bandwidth)
• Ability
• Fit

When a team is reviewing and implementing a strategic plan, the appropriate question would be “can this team execute successfully?” But since this is a plan focused around your own growth, the question becomes “can I execute successfully?”

Tip: it’s helpful to know and/or review your Predictable Success Leadership Style or styles mix at this point. Whether you’re a Visionary, Operator, Processor or Synergist, or a mix of more than one style, understanding your innate gifts as well as your weaknesses is critically important! Not sure what your style is? Find out by clicking the link below!