How to become a strategic leader in business by Kneelyo Akinbowale

How to become a strategic leader in business, nonprofits, or government, you must learn how to think strategically. You should have a strategic mindset if you wish to serve on a corporation or nonprofit board of directors effectively. The following article’s quotes provide the eight characteristics of a strategic mind.

1. Cognitive flexibility: is the ability to see things that are cognitively distant, difficult to perceive, or unfamiliar and to recognize, interpret, synthesize, and see their significance. It is the capacity to find relationships and linkages between these distant facts or observations.

2. Non-linear thinking: They don’t view the world in a straightforward linear fashion, but rather as a collection of intricately interconnected systems, where minor adjustments can have significant repercussions.

3. Comfortable with Ambiguity: They have a great tolerance for ambiguity, which they find in complex situations, opposing viewpoints, and contradicting inputs. They are aware that there is uncertainty and that there is no real control, so they are open to a variety of explanations for the changes they observe.

4. Tackling challenging problems: People with strategic minds do not avoid difficult problems or make an effort to simplify them, maybe as a result of their cognitive flexibility, non-linear thinking, and openness to ambiguity.

5. The large picture: Compared to isolated occurrences, the big picture naturally attracts and influences strategic minds more.

6. Consummate Questioners: Guided by their inquisitive brains, they ask questions to deepen their comprehension, dispel preconceived notions, and assist others in identifying fresh dangers and opportunities.

7. Mindfulness and Sense making: It’s important to turn abstract concepts into frameworks that the rest of the organization can use. To put it another way, there must be a meaning.

8. Self Awareness: Having a strategic mind requires actively attempting to challenge your worldview and assumptions, which in turn challenges your identity and power. This is something that most managers find repugnant. To be able to continuously and openly challenge, and possibly undermine, the setting in which one functions while avoiding falling prey to a company’s dominant logic requires a high level of self-awareness.