Chapter 1 Excerpt: Four Archetypes of Strategic Leadership

We have posted the following excerpt from Chapter 1 of our new book on Medium. The full book, Leading with Strategic Thinking, will be released by Wiley & Sons on April 13, 2015.

Strategic Leadership

We now arrive at the strategic leader. As the central focus of this book, strategic leadership integrates strategic thinking and leadership. The rest of this book will establish and detail our observations regarding how leaders are most effective when seeking insight and driving strategic change. We will examine the key choices they face, the options they should consider, and the way in which they conduct themselves and work with others. We will also highlight where some leaders go wrong when they fail to integrate both strategic thinking and leadership effectively. Strategic thinking without leadership risks becoming an intellectual exercise, as demonstrated by the many strategic plans that gather dust on the shelves of executive offices. Leadership without strategic thinking risks not creating meaningful value, as evident when otherwise effective leaders race down the wrong path or execute a good plan the wrong way. The strategic leader recognizes these risks, and focuses on formulating strategy in a credible way and executing strategy in a planned and purposeful manner. [Continued on Medium...]

Brian Fitzpatrick and Google Takeout

This is one in a series of leadership profiles drawn from our new book, Leading with Strategic Thinking, highlighting what the most strategic leaders do differently.

Brian Fitzpatrick joined Google in 2005, founding the engineering team in Chicago and leading numerous initiatives regarding the transparency and openness of Google’s products. One of those initiatives was Google Takeout, a revolutionary product that enabled any user to easily export their personal information from Google at any time. 

His ideas and approach were controversial at times—he was making it easier for users to leave Google if they want—but they ultimately gained the enthusiasm of his fellow engineers and the support of Google CEO Eric Schmidt. 

Brian’s success relied on what we call collaborative leadership. Brian couldn’t have accomplished his goals alone, as he advocated ideas that went beyond his area of responsibility and the resources he controlled. That didn’t limit his impact, as he built relationships among his peers, listened to understand their goals and needs, found common interests between product owners and his own area of focus, shared his own resources to make others successful, and established a track-record that earned the trust of others.

Brian’s reputation and influence among his peers is widely recognized, earned through his understanding of how engineers want to work: 

I don’t know how it works at other companies, but Google is half engineers. Most engineers are brilliant creative types, and rather anti-authoritarian. They do not respond well to someone hitting them with a stick. If someone comes in and says “You’re going to have to comply with this” they’re going to say “Yeah, whatever.” Instead, the better way is to get people to buy in, show them why this is important and then make it easy for them. I like to say “speak softly and carry a large engineering team.

Brian’s approach is rooted in collaboration, a leadership style that you don’t have to be an engineer to appreciate. We explore this idea and three other leadership types in our book.

Leading with Strategic Leadership comes out on April 13, 2015.

Find out more about Brian and Google Takeout:

@therealfitz (Brian on Twitter)

Google Takeout

Slava, Danae and Eric, founders of Indiegogo

This is one in a series of leadership profiles drawn from our new book, Leading with Strategic Thinking, highlighting what the most strategic leaders do differently.

Indiegogo was born from a really big idea—to disrupt the finance industry. As cofounder Danae Ringlemann states:

Our mission is to democratize access to capital. We want to clear the way for anybody to have a chance to raise money and have their success be based on how hard they are willing to work and how much their audience cares—nothing else.

Danae and her co-founders, Slava Rubin and Eric Schell, made it their mission to revolutionize how people around the world raise funds for projects as diverse as a household robot that manages family schedules to a film honoring the life of renowned critic Roger Ebert.

n creating Indiegogo, Slava, Danae and Eric practiced what we call visionary leadership. They saw trends that created an opportunity, they developed insight through their own experience as fundraisers, they designed a unique solution that has become widely know as crowdfunding, and they made lasting connections with others who were excited about the chance to be involved in something big and new.

Like other visionary leaders, Slava and Danae have made their dent in the universe. In our book, we examine how leaders can apply this and other kinds of leadership to drive change.

Leading with Strategic Leadership comes out on April 13, 2015.

Find out more about Slava, Danae, Eric and Indiegogo:

Indiegogo

@gogoSlava (Slava on Twitter)

@gogoDanae (Danae on Twitter)

José Ignacio Sordo and P&G’s Latin America Merger with Gillette

This is one in a series of leadership profiles drawn from our new book, Leading with Strategic Thinking, highlighting what the most strategic leaders do differently.

In early 2005 Procter & Gamble agreed to acquire Gillette in an effort to combine many of the world’s top brands. José Ignacio Sordo was asked to lead the integration and transformation of P&G’s Latin America IT organization following the merger.

For José Ignacio, this was an opportunity to lead. The goal was clear but the way forward was not. That would require José Ignacio and others to define a clear and structured approach to ensuring the merger’s success:

My goal was not to create a team of doers . . . it was to create a team of leaders. A team of leaders was essential to P&G’s success, a team of leaders willing to make the tough call, willing to do the right things for the right reasons. Our approach was designed to foster leadership, not a team of followers waiting for their next set of directives, guidance, or orders. Throughout the process, leaders along with all the other members of the team must remain fast, speedy, nimble.

José Ignacio was practicing what we call directive leadership, driving strategy through structure and process. He didn’t always tell others what to do, but he made it extremely clear what needed to be done and what the conditions for success were. Like other directive leaders we’ve interviewed, José Ignacio saw himself as building a system. They set direction, establish clear governance for making decisions, they find ways to motivate others, they monitor performance and they intervene when things go off the rails.

These are the key actions of successful directive leaders. In our writing we use leaders like José Ignacio to bring this leadership style to life, showing what directive leaders do differently and how they compare to other types of leaders.

Leading with Strategic Thinking comes out on April 13, 2015.

Find out more about José Ignacio: 

José Ignacio Sordo

Liz Gerber and Design for America

This is one in a series of leadership profiles drawn from our new book, Leading with Strategic Thinking, highlighting what the most strategic leaders do differently.

Liz Gerber founded Design for America to help students apply concepts of design thinking and innovation to meaningful, real world problems. Students in the program have invented a product to help doctors avoid spreading germs among patients, a teddy bear that teaches diabetic children the importance of self-care, and an automated lighting system that helps the elderly avoid injury at night.

In leading the organization, Liz demonstrates what we call incubating leadership, creating results by empowering others. She builds networks among the students, assesses opportunities to help them grow their ideas, sees patterns among a diverse range of experiments and projects, lends the organization's assets to the most promising ideas, and creates an overall ecosystem of support that helps the students succeed.

Liz is self-aware of what it takes to lead in a way that focuses more on her student's ideas than her own.  In talking to us about how she views her role, she said:

These days I feel sometimes like I have a strange role in that I’ve been around longer than all the students, so I know what we’ve done before. Someone will bring up an idea and I think in my head, “Oh yeah, we tried that then and we tried that then and it didn’t work either time.” But instead of discouraging them, I always try and say something like, “Great, I love that you’re excited about this. Let me give you some insight in to other previous efforts so you can learn from it. Plan it out, show us what you’d like to do, and let’s try it.” In those cases I don’t shut them down, but I do ask them to gather a little more evidence about whether it’s going to work or not. Given where we’ve evolved to, I think that’s my new role. 

This epitomizes the mindset of the incubating leader, and Liz's leadership helps bring that to life in our book.

Leading with Strategic Thinking will be released on April 13, 2015

Find out more about Liz and Design for America:

Design for America

Liz Gerber, PhD, Northwestern University

@elizgerber (Twitter)