3 Things Leaders Can Do to Create An Effective Strategic Plan

A California-based business development executive with a background in finance, William Rossetter most recently served as a Corporate Development Consultant with Vision Solutions, Inc., an enterprise software company. Prior to this role, William Rossetter spent three years with UNICOM Global as the Director of Mergers & Acquisitions and Business Development. In this capacity, he oversaw the analysis and research of strategic business initiatives and business development activities.

One key activity that promotes business development within a company is strategic planning. When properly executed, strategic planning can help managers to decide where to direct their energies, evaluate priorities, streamline operations, and navigate change to effectively push a company toward its goals. An executive who wishes to engage in strategic planning should keep the following tips in mind.

1. Ask the right questions. The best way to create a strong strategic plan is to begin by developing answers to important questions. Management should discuss a company’s broader goals and examine which milestones the firm should be looking to achieve along the way in order to keep the business moving forward. Leaders should also ask themselves how the company will dominate the competition, which markets the company should work in, and which systems need to be put in place in order to realize strategic planning initiatives.

2. Communicate clearly. Leaders should avoid using unnecessary buzzwords or filler language when presenting a strategic plan to employees. The use of generic, empty terms that do not express concrete ideas usually arises when a leadership team attempts to explain a strategic plan that has not been fully developed.

3. Conduct tests before you commit. When developing a strategic plan, it can be useful for leaders to experiment with ideas before committing to a plan of action. Rather than settling for assumptions or peripheral research to guess at the outcome of a plan, leaders should implement short-term field tests to assess the viability of a strategic planning directive. This can help to determine how effective an idea would be before it becomes an official part of a company’s strategy.

What Are the Most Important Leadership Competencies?

William Rossetter is a business development professional who has worked for multi-national organizations such as Vision Solutions and UNICOM Global. As a Corporate Development Consultant, William Rossetter exercises his business leadership skills to oversee research and analysis projects.

Companies and corporate researchers alike have long pondered about what elements combine to create great leaders. One recent study of 195 international leaders from 15 countries pinpointed a few key competencies that the best leaders possess.

In the study, ethics stood out as perhaps the most important of all leadership qualities. More than two-thirds of respondents said that effective leaders should have “high ethical and moral standards.” In the same vein, 56 percent stated that the ability of leaders to convey their expectations to their employees was a valuable leadership competency. The combination of these qualities ensures that leaders can guide their teams honestly and that no one is left out of the loop. As a result, they are able to create an air of trust between themselves and their team members.

Another crucial leadership competency involves developing a sense of “connection and belonging” among teams. Leaders with effective interpersonal skills are better equipped to relate to their employees and to foster positive relationships with them. Making simple connections by remembering colleagues’ names and asking about their personal lives can help each team member to feel a sense of belonging and safety among the wider group of employees.