A staggering 90% of professionals fail to reach leadership positions, not due to a lack of skill, but because they fail to demonstrate strategic thinking. While many believe that exceeding performance expectations is the key to promotion, executives actually reward potential over current performance. To bridge the gap between being an executor and a leader, professionals must adopt specific mental models that build credibility and authority.
Ask Strategic Questions
The most immediate way to signal leadership potential is by changing the types of questions asked in meetings. Most employees ask operational questions—focusing on deadlines, ownership, and data availability—which position them merely as executors. To be seen as a leader, you must ask strategic questions that connect specific decisions to the bigger picture. These fall into three categories:
- Outcome Focused: Linking efforts to business results (e.g., "How will this impact revenue or retention?").
- Prioritization Driven: Clarifying what actions yield the highest impact (e.g., "If we can only do one thing, what moves the needle most?").
- Risk Oriented: analyzing trade-offs (e.g., "What are we saying no to by choosing this?").
Use the "Linking" Technique
Hard work often goes unnoticed if it isn’t clearly connected to leadership’s priorities. Strategy does not equal complexity; it equals delivering outcomes. Professionals should use "Linking" to stop their efforts from being overlooked. This involves identifying what leadership currently cares about and explicitly connecting your work to those goals. Instead of stating what you did (e.g., "I improved a process"), state what you drove (e.g., "I freed up 10 hours for revenue-generating work to support our growth target"). This shifts the narrative from value in doing to value in driving.
Turn Information into Insight
Providing raw data or information is known as "enablement," which helps others make decisions but keeps you in a support role. To step into a strategic role, you must transform information into insight. Before sharing data, run it through a three-step framework:
- What does it mean? (Interpretation of the trend).
- Why does it matter? (Implication for the business, such as revenue erosion).
- What should we do next? (Actionable recommendation).
By presenting the interpretation and the solution rather than just the raw stats, you stop sounding like an employee and start sounding like a decision-maker.
Mentoring question
When you look at your current project list, how can you reframe your description of the work to explicitly link it to one of your company’s top three strategic priorities?
Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sJjfrY0PZK0&is=h73vxMDLWmcSb3Mb