Middle manager? Here are eleven ways to cultivate a strategic mindset and accelerate your progression.

I’m proud of my career journey from Sales Consultant to Sales Director, which took around 12 years within the same company. It makes me feel emotional when one of my team says that this inspires them to follow the same career path.

My career has naturally evolved and I didn’t really have a plan to become a Director. However, I have always been very ambitious. 

There have, of course, been lots of stumbling blocks along the way. I am passionate about supporting others who are keen to progress through sharing some of my learnings. 

I wanted to put this out there to help aspiring leaders frame their thoughts so that they can start to be more strategic. Particularly those in middle management looking at Director roles. 

At some point a few years ago when in quite a senior role I was given the (fair) feedback that I wasn’t thinking strategically enough.

This feedback has always stuck with me. I’ve often worried that I’m too operational. 

But what’s best … an operational leader or a strategic one? What’s the right balance between the two?

By being more operational, you feel closer to what’s going on. But, by being so in to the detail, your time is eaten up. I used to get (and still do slip into this) busy filling my diary, visiting stores, ploughing through emails so much so that I didn’t give myself enough thinking time. 

Here are some tips for devising a strategic mindset and accelerating your progression: 

 1. Take time out - Some of the best ideas will come when you allow yourself breathing space, away from the day to day. The best advice I was given by my boss was to go for a walk, (yes, that is allowed when you are working!) talk things over in your head either to yourself or someone else. 

2.      Tidy up your mind - Sort out all of the little niggles and ideas into broader themes. Start to pad out some of your ideas and make them bigger. I’m a huge fan of lists; categorise all the stuff in your head and brain vomit onto paper. Sort it into operational (day to day) stuff and separate out the bigger ideas which will need further work and designate some thinking time to work on them. 

3.      Stop being busy being busy! Prioritise - use the good old important vs urgent model. Do you need to attend all of the 30 meetings in your diary this week? Do you have to reply to all emails in your inbox today? Slow the pace down and train yourself to question things a bit more before you race through the week in earnest. You could be missing some important pieces of information that can help build your strategy. This doesn’t mean you have to let go of the operational stuff. You’re just making more room for the new, innovative ideas to take shape.

4.      Delegate - to your team to pick up the operational bits that are taking your up time - this will help broaden their skills. Building trust takes time, trial and error and a coaching mindset. It’s easy to say that you’re so busy that you don’t have time to teach someone else when you could have done it yourself but if you keep doing this, nothing will change. 

5.      Develop your team - it’s widely known that it makes things a lot easier to get promoted if you have someone chomping at the bit to step into your shoes. As well as delegating, could one of your team shadow you in a regular meeting with a view to taking your spot or at least supporting with the execution of the actions? Give them smaller projects or tasks that you would normally have taken and support them through it. Expose them to more of your role so you can step back a bit.

6.      Find a mentor - someone who is strategic who you can chat your ideas through with, someone who will challenge you. Meet them regularly, bring problems to discuss and ideas to thrash out. It has to be someone you trust but my advice would be to find someone who is completely different to you. I’m very lively and run a million miles an hour so appreciate someone who is calming and someone who has a direct, no fluff approach 

7.      Speak up - talk to your boss, tell them you want to progress, ask for a project to work on which pushes you. Make it clear you want progression. 5 years in to my career, I asked my boss if I could open a shop and I ended up opening all 50 of them and went on to run the whole retail network!

8.      Get out of your comfort zone. Nothing big, exciting or life changing will happen if you don’t get comfortable being uncomfortable. Be that presenting in front of a new, larger audience or networking at an external event. Set yourself a challenge to do something that pushes you.

9.      Network - talk to smart people, inside and outside your business and industry. Share ideas.  

10.  Think about the way you come across and present yourself and your opinions and ideas. This can be from dressing extra smart in the office, to the way you deliver beautifully presented slides delivered in a clear, succinct and memorable way in a meeting.

11.  Ask good questions and check understanding. Don’t be afraid to speak out in meetings or worry about coming across as silly. What’s the reason we do it that way? Could we do things differently this time? 

My proudest pieces of strategic work were to work on the ‘Kuoni way’ service philosophy, an end to end customer ownership piece which aims to empower our retail team to deliver a memorable, heartfelt experience. The Kuoni ‘People agenda’, a strategy to attract and retain the best talent, as well as the commercial growth of the retail Store network. 

The best bit of building a strategy for me is executing it; from involving your team, bringing them with you, to bringing your goals to life, making it happen and seeing the results. Hearing your team use the words and language you’ve carefully chosen to bring the strategy to life is pretty special. 

I am still work in progress in terms of sharpening my strategic thinking and it’s something I’ll keep working on forever. I’ve improved considerably over the years by surrounding myself with great people and challenging myself hard to improve in this area.

Anything I missed?

Are you an operational leader or a strategic one?

What would you add to this list of tips for aspiring leaders?