Connecting to Admired Leadership
Allocate Time in Each Day for Both Strategic & Tactical Work
Episode Summary
A conversation with Admired Leadership Executive Coach John Schoew and Wes Bender from CRA | Admired Leadership, exploring why so many leaders default almost entirely to tactical work and what the best leaders actually do to protect and prioritize strategic thinking. Recorded from a Chick-fil-A in Tampa (Wes's most unconventional location yet), this session cuts through the buzzword fog around "strategy" to provide a clear, practical framework for understanding the difference between tactical and strategic work, why the pull toward tactical is so powerful, and four concrete disciplines for building strategic thinking into daily leadership. John draws on his background as a former Accenture partner and executive coach to make the case that 30 minutes of daily strategic thinking compounds dramatically over time.
Episode Notes
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Key Highlights
- Tactical vs. strategic defined simply: Tactical is "do and delegate" - executing and getting things done; strategic is "design and discern" - designing how the organization works and looking farther down the field to determine how to win
- Why tactical wins every time: Tactical work is urgent, visible, and on fire - inboxes, texts, and project management systems are "fancy ways for people to put things on your to-do list without your permission," creating a constant magnetic pull away from strategic thinking
- Four disciplines for protecting strategic time: Use forcing mechanisms (like Reclaim.ai), build strategic thinking into recurring meetings as a consistent agenda item, leverage relationships and ongoing conversations to keep strategy alive, and find your personal best environment for strategic thinking
- Delegation as a strategic tool: Assign strategic thinking work to team members as a development opportunity - it creates a forcing mechanism for you while growing their capability, and prevents the stagnation that happens when leaders hold onto everything
- The compounding effect: Just as financial discipline of saving first pays off exponentially, 30 minutes of daily strategic thinking compounds dramatically - the leaders who do this consistently are the ones who orient to shore while others swim hard in the wrong direction
Notable Quotes
- "Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things." - Peter Drucker (quoted in Field Note)
- "Inboxes, texts, chats, project management systems are fancy ways for people to put things on your to-do list without your permission."
- "What got you here won't get you there as a leader. You have to recognize a massive context shift from mainly tactical work to the design and discerning work of strategy."
- "If you're excellent at something but it drains the living daylights out of you, delegate it - so you can focus on the things you're excellent at that actually energize you. That's where you have real impact."
- "Think about a swimmer out at sea. Every now and then you've got to pick yourself up and orient to shore - am I heading the right direction? If you don't do that, you may have the greatest tactical work in the world and be miles off course."
Featured Speakers
- John Schoew (pronounced "Shay") is a Managing Director and Senior Executive Coach at CRA | Admired Leadership, bringing a unique combination of corporate strategy expertise and executive coaching to his work with leaders. A former partner at Accenture with experience spanning Fortune 500 companies, government, and the Middle East, he specializes in helping leaders make the critical shift from tactical excellence to strategic leadership. A self-described ADHD thinker who does his best strategic work while driving, he uses Alex daily as a thought partner and voice-records insights to process later with AI.
- Wes Bender serves as a facilitator and thought leadership coordinator at CRA | Admired Leadership, helping to connect practical leadership insights with real-world application through webinars and educational content.
Resources Mentioned