In organizations with more straightforward nested leadership, things flow down through hierarchical levels with as little change as possible, much like how smaller and smaller Russian dolls are nested within each other. The key to more competitive agility is understanding and leveraging the important differences and interactions between nested leadership at cultural, strategic and tactical levels.
- Cultural leadership: Who you are and what you stand for
- Strategic leadership: Arranging resources before deployment
- Tactical leadership: Deploying and adjusting resources in real time
Cultural Leadership
Cultural leadership is about modeling and driving the non-negotiable and often unwritten rules and norms around behaviors, relationships, attitudes, values and environment. Everything everyone says and does must nest within the culture because culture is the only sustainable advantage.
Strategic Leadership
Strategic leadership flows from the Greek word “strategos” – the art of the general. This is about arranging forces before the battle – planning where to play (and not play) and how to win. Here you should leverage diverse voices and perspectives to ratchet up your current best thinking on the way to getting full leadership alignment.
Tactical Leadership
Tactical leadership flows from the Greek word “taktikos” – deploying forces in battle. This is about tactical capacity, a team’s ability to translate strategies into tactical actions decisively, rapidly, and effectively, with high-quality responsiveness under difficult, changing conditions. As one leader puts it, “Tactical leadership is about permanent agility and adaptation looking for solutions.”
Nesting Cultural, Strategic, and Tactical Leadership
Cultural leaders set the purpose of the enterprise including mission, vision and values – the heart of Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle. Everything else flows from that.
Strategic leaders must be aligned, bound by the culture, and communicate strategies in a way that tactical leaders can follow. The U.S. military’s Commander’s Intent and Concept of Operations is one good framework for that communication.
Tactical leaders must embrace the non-negotiable cultural rules and the difference between mandatory strategic policies and optional strategic guidelines. Ultimately, the art of delegating is about empowering tactical leaders’ decision-making.
My first boss told me to do something. I asked him why. He said because he was the boss. I then suggested that if I didn’t understand why he was asking me to do what he was asking me to do, all I could do was exactly what he told me to do. But, if I did understand his intent, I might be able to find a better way to get done what he needed done.
Breakdown at Boeing
Forever, Boeing was all about safety. People used to say, “If it ain’t Boeing, we’re not going.” Boeing taught the government how to regulate safety. Safety was deeply embedded in its culture.
But Boeing sold its soul in the merger with McDonnel Douglas, accepting compromises on safety to increase efficiency.Now, after a couple of planes fell out of the sky, a door blew off in mid-air, and two astronauts got stranded in space, people say >“If it is Boeing, we’re not going.”
In terms of core focus, Boeing is a production organization.
Its cultural, strategic, and tactical leaders must lead the production of things that don’t fail.
Breakdown at Starbucks
Starbucks was built as the “third place,” modeled after Italian coffee bars where people could come and linger at a place that was neither home nor work. People paid a premium for the coffee not because it was great, but because of the experience.
Over the past few years, Starbucks has added multiple variations to its coffee and put in place online ordering for more convenient service and pick-up. As each store’s throughput has grown in volume and complexity, they’ve cut back on seating to ease the flow of people in and out of the store. They’ve abandoned their “third place” position to others filling that gap.
At its core, Starbucks is a service organization. Its cultural, strategic, and tactical leaders must lead the efforts to give customers a superior experience.
Implications for You
Get the balance of mandatories and flexibility right. As a cultural leader, don’t compromise. Insist that everyone reflect the culture in everything they say and do. As a strategic leader, nest your broad directional choices within the culture while making sure everyone is clear on your intent and their degrees of freedom. As a tactical leader, ground yourself in the culture and strategy and then have the confidence to make the tactical decisions required to adapt to changing circumstances with agility in real time.
John Hall
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