Sep 16 Who’s Driving Your Strategy? (And Why It Better Be You)
The higher you rise in leadership, the less valuable you are as a doer. Yet many executives cling to tactics like a comfort blanket—checking dashboards, approving deliverables, and inserting themselves into every fire drill. That may feel productive, but it isn’t leadership. It’s expensive labor disguised as authority.
I spoke with a CEO prospect recently who admitted, “Sarah, I don’t have time for coaching or strategy sessions. I’m too busy making sure we deliver.” My candid response was this: If you’re not shaping your company’s strategy, who is? When no one drives the future, you hardwire your business DNA for decline.
Strategy Isn’t a Luxury—It’s Survival
Here’s a sobering reality: a recent McKinsey study found that 61% of executives spend more time on urgent operations than long-term strategy—yet the same group ranked strategic foresight as the #1 predictor of company survival. That contradiction is exactly why once-great companies implode.
Take Netflix and Blockbuster. Blockbuster was operationally excellent. They executed with precision, opened stores on time, and hit their numbers. But they failed strategically. They couldn’t see how fast customer behavior was shifting. Netflix, on the other hand, was bold enough to redesign its DNA from DVD mailers to streaming to content creation. They didn’t wait for disruption—they shaped it.
Strategy isn’t optional. It’s the difference between industry dominance and irrelevance.
My Corporate DNA Test: Macy’s and 8 Mergers
When I was at Macy’s, I lived this reality. I led large teams through eight mergers and acquisitions across a rapidly consolidating retail landscape. Every few years, the rules of the game changed: new competitors emerged, new customer behaviors developed, and new economic pressures arose.
We couldn’t afford to stay tactical. Running the stores and managing performance alone would have left my teams blindsided by every merger. Instead, we had to keep evolving, strategically rethinking processes, integrating cultures, and aligning teams with the future, not the past.
Those who refused to think strategically didn’t survive the transitions. Those who did helped shape the DNA of Macy’s into a stronger, more resilient enterprise. That lesson has never left me: the DNA of an organization replicates from the top. If you’re tactical, your teams will be tactical. If you’re strategic, you hardwire the company for growth.
Five Provocative Shifts to Stop Being Tactical and Start Being Strategic
1. Stop Confusing Activity with Progress
Busyness feels safe. It gives the illusion of momentum. But here’s the truth: if you’re measuring your value by how much you do, you’re not a leader—you’re a highly paid individual contributor.
Strategic leaders don’t pursue every problem. They efficiently remove distractions, free up space for strategic thinking, and shift focus to what will enhance enterprise value over the next three years, not the next three hours.
2. Delegate as if the future depends on it
If you’re still the most innovative operator in your department, you’ve failed to scale. Strategy requires elevation.
Your role isn’t to solve every problem, but to develop other leaders who can. Delegating isn’t about dumping work; it’s about transferring ownership. Until you assemble a team of leaders capable of acting without you, you’ll remain stuck in tactical quicksand. And here’s the hard truth: if you can’t let go of tactics, you’re not safeguarding your company, you’re choking it.
3. Incorporate Strategic Conversations Into Your Corporate DNA™
Ask yourself: What drives your executive meetings, metrics, or meaning? If all you focus on are operational dashboards, you’re ingraining your organization’s DNA from the past.
Strategic leaders create a different rhythm. They ask:
- What trends might disrupt us in 18 months?
- Where is our customer behavior changing the quickest?
- Which future leaders are ready, and which aren’t?
These conversations flow through the culture. When leadership emphasizes future-focused dialogue, the core of the enterprise rewires around foresight and resilience.
4. Connect the Dots That Everyone Else Misses
Your true value at the senior level isn’t just solving today’s problems—it’s identifying tomorrow’s. Leaders who succeed recognize connections others overlook.
Netflix didn’t just notice declining DVD rentals. They predicted how technology, consumer impatience, and broadband adoption would come together. They asked, what will this mean for us five years from now? That question changed everything.
If you’re not asking the questions no one else dares to ask, you’re not shaping strategy, you’re just waiting for someone else to do it.
5. Invest in Strategic Capacity or Risk Becoming Replaceable
The most common excuse I hear from executives is, “I don’t have time to step back and think.” Here’s the reality: if you don’t have time to be strategic, you don’t have time to be a leader.
Your team can handle the daily tasks. Only you can shape the future. If you don’t, someone else will eventually and that person might also take your job.
The DNA of Strategic Leadership
Every organization has a DNA an ingrained pattern of how it thinks, acts, and develops. And like human DNA, it replicates from the top.
If you operate tactically, so will your people. If you elevate strategically, you create a ripple effect of foresight, innovation, and succession readiness. That’s how you future-proof an enterprise.
The companies that lead the market are those where leaders intentionally shape their corporate DNA™ for the future. The ones that fail? They’re the ones where leaders were too busy managing the past.
So let me leave you with the same question I asked that CEO prospect:
If you’re not driving the strategy of your organization, who is? And if it isn’t you, how long will your company’s DNA survive the next disruption?
- About the Author
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Sarah Hathorn, CEO of Hathorn Consulting Group, is the go-to-expert in working with leaders and companies to create successful corporate DNA. As an executive coach, consultant and speaker she collaborates globally with clients and brands such as Deloitte, McKesson, Kimberly-Clark, Sherwin-Williams, Home Depot and other leading organizations.
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