The State of The Union

Tonight is a very exciting night for many as millions of people will be watching TV to hear what President Obama has to say during his first state of the union address to the American public since his election.  I’m excited to hear what kind of strategy the president has outlined for America.  Outlining an effective strategy is not only tremendously important for our country, but critical for businesses as well.  However, as Mr. Obama has already painfully discovered, creating a strategy with associated goals and objectives is one thing, delivering on that strategy is quite another.

Fortunately for most companies, departmental leaders and executives don’t always suffer the same type of scrutiny as our president.  However, that doesn’t mean business leaders shouldn’t pay as much attention to creating their business strategy.  And while creating a successful business strategy can be difficult, the real difficulty lies in tracking and managing strategy on a day to day basis.

I’ve worked for leaders who manage strategy on a very tactical, and deliberate level.  These leaders are very challenging to work for as they are almost as knowledgeable of your business as you and your team.  Think Larry Bossidy or Jack Welsh.  Think Bill Parcells. You cannot hide your foibles from these individuals.  These are the leaders who usually make us better employees, assuming they give us room to breathe.  No detail escapes them; bad news doesn’t get any better with age.  More importantly, these leaders know when we are achieving our strategy, or need to make a course correction sooner versus later for our business. 

On the other side of the coin I’ve worked for leaders who were very hands off and allowed me to either succeed or fail without much interaction on their part.  While I enjoyed the freedom to run my operations as I chose, I didn’t always benefit from their knowledge.  More importantly, these hands off leaders minimally reinforced our corporate strategy and we seldom knew if all the work generated actually contributed to our strategy or not.  These leaders showed marginal concern over tracking and measuring strategic goals and objectives.

I’m not entirely sure what kind of leader Mr. Obama is; hands off or hands on.  I sincerely hope our president outlines an excellent strategy that will help lead the nation through our current challenges.  I hope Mr. Obama sets course to manage our strategy effectively and efficiently; enabling our country to quickly change direction when needed.  Without this level of attention to detail we may very well be in for more challenging times to come.

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