Again, no one submitted a winning entry!! Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised because, as with several other letters, there are many choices available for the winning S-word. Don’t you want your leader to be SAVVY, SECURE, SELFLESS, SELF-AWARE, SERVANT-HEARTED, SINCERE, SKILLED, SMART, STRAIGHTFORWARD, STRATEGIC, STEADY, STRONG, SUCCESSFUL, SUCCINCT, SUPPORTIVE, and SYMPATHETIC? Of course you do, but which attribute is essential for the team to achieve and sustain greatness? I would argue that the leader must be strategic. Managers can be tactical, but leaders must be strategic.
While discussing goals, objectives, and strategies in Why It Matters, you’ll find the following: “What strategies will you use to achieve the goals and objectives? More than two thousand years ago, Sun Tzu said, ‘Thus, what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy.’ He also said, ‘All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.’ It’s vital to change strategies as conditions change. Strategic thinking is applicable to any leadership opportunity, not just war.
“Drucker points out, ‘There is an old saying that good intentions don’t move mountains; bulldozers do.’ He notes that strategies are the bulldozers that transform mission and plans from good intentions to accomplishments.
“At one point in his career, Drucker was opposed to the term strategy. He thought it was too closely associated with the military and was often meaningless. He eventually became an advocate for strategies because they are action-focused. He reluctantly accepted the term because strategies are something you work for, not hope for.”[i]
Often, in leadership books you’ll find strategic linked with planning. Strategic planning is important for an organization, but it’s essential for the leader to be strategic in making every decision. As an example, in Why It Matters, I noted, “Tom Peters and Nancy Austin introduced me to naive listening in A Passion for Excellence. Naive listening is listening to the ultimate customer, not just those who report directly to you. They shared an example from Milliken & Company, a textile company based in Spartanburg, South Carolina, at the time led by Roger Milliken and Tom Malone, people I knew and respected.
“Milliken’s marketing director shared with Peters his experience after working two weeks on the night shift of the housekeeping staff for a major hospital. The manager learned firsthand while scrubbing floors and cleaning carpets the strengths and limitations of Milliken’s products and performed naive listening with people using their products.
“He found the experience invaluable and planned on doing it with more customers. For managing by wandering around to be successful, you must wander into the right places and perform naive listening. You must be strategic in where you wander and keep your ears and eyes open.”[ii]
It’s easy for a leader to become entangled in nitty-gritty, day-to-day activities and “lose sight of the forest for the trees.” In choosing issues to focus on, be strategic. I emphasized this by citing the Eisenhower matrix when addressing the P-word.
In Why It Matters, I include chapters on leadership paradoxes and balance. In the former chapter I identify twenty paradoxes a leader faces: leading and serving; being consistent and unpredictable; integrity and deception; flexibility and inflexibility; trusting and verifying; deciding and delegating; demanding and empathetic; vulnerable and resilient; humorous and serious; fair and equal; people and results; steady and disruptive; empowering and controlling; introverted and extroverted; risk averse and risk taking; fact-based and intuition-based decisions; direct and subtle; long-term and short-term focus; details and the big picture; and answering and questioning. For each, the leader must be strategic. Just as leadership is situational and contingent, so is the best choice with each paradox. Instead of asking a leader to be strategic, I could ask the leader to be wise. Wisdom carries with it elements of time and circumstance.
In the chapter on balance I point out the need to balance family and career, emotions, short term and long term considerations, being predictable and unpredictable, being transparent and being secretive, dealing with internal and external demands, deciding and delegating, speaking and listening, standing firm and yielding, making decisions qualitatively and quantitatively, focusing on the big picture and focusing on the little picture, asking for permission and asking for forgiveness, and being an amplifier and being an attenuator. In the chapter on balance, I also addressed the need for the leader to have a balanced life.[iii] As with paradoxes, a leader must be strategic in achieving balance. After all, leaders are walking tightropes without nets and, sometimes, doing so blindfolded. In all things, words and deeds, be strategic!
Next: Leadership ABCs—T
Rules for the game to receive a signed copy of Why It Matters: 1) limited to U.S.A. mailing addresses; 2) limited to a single selection for the word; 3) cannot submit entry sooner than one week before the blog is posted on LinkedIn; 4) be the first correct entry I receive; and 5) send entries to me at johnaustinwhitejr@gmail.com. The earliest you can submit your T-word entry is 12:00 am, EDT, April 22, 2026; the latest time is 12:00 am, EDT, April 29, 2026.
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[i] John A. White, Why It Matters: Reflections on Practical Leadership, Greenleaf Book Group Press, Austin, TX, p. 140-141.
[ii] Ibid, p. 65.
[iii] Ibid, pp. 128-130.
