The 3 dimensions of leadership

Early in your career, you probably had the luxury of focusing on the challenges of the day.

But as you broaden your scope and take on larger leadership challenges, it pays to add dimensions to your thinking.

Operational thinking addresses the work you do to get through each day, processing the business transactions that pay the rent. Closing deals, addressing customer challenges, shipping code. This work is table stakes for any business. Necessary but, ultimately, not sufficient for any organization with ambitions to survive.

For survival requires a direction, and you can't have direction without an idea of your destination. Strategic thinking is all about setting this destination—what should the business become? While this is usually a C-suite responsibility, it's a mistake for a business to confine strategic thinking to the Boardroom. After all, the best ideas come from customers via the front line. Strategic thinking is about distilling these ideas into a vision of a better business—it's a skill to develop throughout your career, and for you to nurture in all your team members.

But even that's not enough if you want to kick ass.

Saving the best till last, Change thinking is about achieving the vision. Mapping a route to the strategic destination, taking the most direct path you can while remaining responsive to the shifts and hurdles that the journey throws up. Working in concert with your colleagues, partners and customers to execute the projects that will improve your operations. This step makes the strategy relevant. It's tough work, but a ton of fun.

Trusting Technology is a book about forming ideas, exploring opportunities with customers and colleagues, and building your future together. Order you copy here . This article is also available in hardcopy as part of my 10-minute Reflections series of exercises—order volume 1 here and volume 2 here.