07 May If organisational strategy is the answer, what is the question?

When the question is “why do we need a clear and shared strategy?” the answer should come from the importance of the mission or purpose of the organisation – and all of strategy, leadership and teams combine to bring that mission to realisation.

Strategy, Leadership, Teams – these are not a sequence but are parts of a whole. All three support the mission or sense of purpose of the organisation. A pot needs at least three legs. Good strategy is ignited by a shared sense of mission and emerges from conversations among teams. Good teams are mobilised by committing resources like time and money and people and machinery to the effort. Good leadership normalises and legitimises the effort through routines and (eventually) rules that become the culture of the place.

Where any one of the three – strategy, leadership, or teams – is weak, then the whole is weak. If the question is “where are we going, and why”, then a consensus approach (from the team) leads to faster mobilisation of resources and generates leadership (not just one leader).

Words, conversations, ideas, resources, norms come together to create the organisation. The guiding ideas create the potential for leadership. Investments in leadership without a strategy anchor, or divorced from the organisational teams, is like a beautiful container with nothing in it – or a beautiful car without fuel.

A scan of blogs and posts on LinkedIn show theoretical silos: leader development as an act of character, strategy development as an act of thinking, and team development as an act of unity. In organisational settings all of these are bound by the organisational mission and are a collective action.

How are your teams calling you to lead your organisational mission? What strategies require your leadership to bring them to life?

At WorldsView we believe that great strategy is built and executed by Purposeful Teams and is supported by (nine) ongoing conversations in leadership. Talk to us about why strategy, leadership and teams are the legs that support your mission, and why they should not be developed independently of one another.