From Executor to Strategist: How to Talk About Your Work at the Right Altitude (Ep.309)

Here’s a test that I run with leaders every so often. I ask, what are you building? And about nine out of 10 start listing tasks. Well, we are migrating to a new platform. We are rolling out a new process. We’re building dashboards. We’re solving this problem, and they’re describing actual work, because it’s so natural. It’s what we do all the time. But that can turn into a problem because the people above you, the stakeholders that you are trying to influence, your cross-functional peers, they’re not really asking or care about your to-do list.

They’re asking. Where are you taking this? What are you all about? What is your team about? And when someone asks what you are building and you then answer with what you are doing, you have kind of shrunk yourself in their eyes, or you’re definitely not tapping into the potential of how you can present yourself and your leadership

in their minds.

My name is Ramona Shah and I’m the host of The Manager Track podcast. So in this episode, I’m going to show you how to stop defaulting to tactics and to start articulating a vision that positions you as someone who thinks at the level above your current role. And beyond the current time horizon. And this matters not when you have an annual planning session and you’re supposed to sort of like talk about the vision.

It matters all the time. It. Especially right now in a moment when organizations are going through change and employees are concerned about the change that might be happening, the access and implementation of new technology restructuring, shifting priorities when everything is in motion, the leaders who can name the destination and paint a clear picture of what that looks like are the ones.

People like to follow. And that’s not only true for the people reporting into that leader, but also the people around that leader, the peers, and the more senior leaders who wanna know, are you stuck in the to-dos? Are you a tactical person or are you someone who can elevate quickly in a moment of opportunity to cast a vision?

And so. I wanna give you the exact language that you can use starting this week. Whenever you find yourself in a conversation whenever you want someone to buy into what you and your team are doing.

But let me talk about some research here First, a study

looked at how leaders communicate vision to their teams and what actually drives performance. And they found that when leaders used vivid image-based vision, language and, concrete descriptions of what the future looks like, and paired that with a small number of clear values, team performance went up significantly.

Because when people share the same picture of where they are headed, start to make better decisions independently because they’re all orienting toward the same outcome.

But here’s the concerning part. The researchers also found that most leaders do not do this. Most leaders default to the abstract, vague language when they talk about the future. The authors of that paper, and an article called This Blurry Vision Bias.

So leaders think in broad terms about the future. And that vagueness then transfers straight into how they communicate, and then they end up describing priorities and projects very clearly. Instead of painting a picture of where they’re actually headed, now let’s layer on what we know about change a 2024 study in the Journal of Business Research.

Examined vision, communication during organizational change specifically, and what they found is that when employees face higher levels of work, uncertainty, the impact of a leader’s vision, communication on their behavior becomes more pronounced, not less right. Vision, most definitely does not matter.

Less during turbulence. It matters more and this isn’t rocket science. Really. Sure. We all can agree that during chaotic times or uncertain times, having a vision matters more.

When things are shifting, people need, we all need that fixed point to navigate towards. And if you are not providing that, people will fill the vacuum with anxiety assumptions, or maybe even disengagement. Now in stable times vision, of course, is a leadership asset, As well in times of change, it is most definitely now a leadership requirement. So if you are in an organization right now going through restructuring, budget shifts, AI adoption, leadership changes, any kind of transition, your ability to articulate where your team is headed or your department is headed is the single highest leverage communication skill that you can sharpen.

Every time that you talk about your team’s work, you are either describing the destination is the outcome, right? That future state, what the world looks like when you have succeeded.

The route you’re taking. There’s the projects, the tools, the timelines, the logistics of how you get there. Your stakeholders, they want the destination your team needs both the destination, but also their route. You’re taking most managers though default to always talking about the route, never really talking about that destination or not in a clear way. So let me show you what this sounds like. Same team, same work, two different versions.

The route version is when I ask, what are you building? Sure. We are updating our onboarding process and we are moving a lot of our content into an AI workflow.

Some of it will now be sort of, uh, independently accessible. Some of it will stay high touch where we have in-person sessions, in addition. And with that, we’re also looking at upgrading our tech stack in order to make sure that our people and our engineers are joining, are equipped with all the necessary, platforms that they need, , the tools that we already have in place, but also they have access to all the relevant AI to hit the ground.

Running. Because right now we notice there’s a lot of inconsistencies in how things are being done and what people have access to or not. That was very tactical. Right. So now let me give you the destination or that vision. Yeah, sure. Again, the question is what are you. We are building toward a place where every person in our department, from their first week on to their 10th year really is operating with the same playbook.

With the same current tools and standards, and they have access to the same AI training and AI platform. We’re therefore not just training and equipping new hires, but we’re also creating an entirely new tech equipped workforce where development is ongoing because of technological change

it’s faster moving than ever, so this is no longer going to be a one-time event. This is going to become part of our culture. Same kind of work, right, but completely different impression the route version makes it sound like a project manager reporting on tasks.

If I was a senior leader and someone else would give me that response, I would think that they’re very tactical and may have a hard time thinking strategically or abstracting from their day to day. If someone responds with that destination, that second version. Now I’m seeing like, oh, they’re thinking ahead.

They’re able to create and cast that vision. It’s a different perception I have of that leader with the second response than the one with the first, the second one really makes you sound like a leader who is shaping the business. Now another thing that I wanna briefly bring up, and that is the word continue. When we say we will continue to provide excellent customer support,

we will continue to be the market leader in so-and-so. If you are genuinely maintaining something that already exists, that is fine, but it’s not an exciting vision, most likely ’cause it’s already there. So if you are building something from scratch or you are fundamentally changing how something works or you are recreating a new environment.

Don’t undersell it, continue the word continue will undersell that effort. So instead we want to use words that are more exciting, like building or setting up or, um, creating. Those are words that signal that you see yourself as someone who constructs something new, not just keeping the lights on.

Continue its maintenance language. If you are building, say that you are building those little changes in words make a big difference in how someone perceives what you’re all about.

now, if this is resonating with you and you wanna go deeper on how to position yourself and your team in the organization, I wanna tell you about our executive Presence Intensive.

This is an eight week program that we run for mid and senior leaders. Who are looking to expand their position, and how they’re being perceived in the organization. Our next cohort will kick off shortly on May 4th, and we will run the program again in the fall.

So if this is something that you’re interested in, check out the link below. In the program. We go deep on exactly this kind of thing, executive communication, stakeholder influence, and how to operate at the right altitude for your role. The program is cohort based so that you don’t go through this alone. It’s a small group of other leaders who are in the same boat that you can learn through the coaching, the on-demand training, but also the actual practice that you can immediately go out and apply in your day-to-day work. You will see a shift in how you communicate and how you present yourself, and therefore how you’re being perceived over the course of only eight weeks.

If you know that your work is strong, but maybe your messaging isn’t quite landing, or if you lead a team and you wanna build capacity beyond that, then check out the link in the description. this might be exactly the right program for you.

Okay. Now back to the episode.

So how do you build your destination statement or that vision? Here is a quick three step process that you can do in 10 minutes this week. Step number one. Name the future state in one sentence, what does the organization, the team, your environment look like when your team has succeeded? Not the projects, not the tools, just the outcome.

What is the outcome you’re going for? Then step two, add one or two. Supporting pillars.

These are the dimensions of that outcome. For example. We want to exceed our client expectations. We want to ship code that is bug free

because we are leveraging new technology. Those might be sort of the main thing, but they may be just supporting pillars to your core idea, so you don’t need to stick to the one single thing. That one main outcome, adding a bit more color. On the different pillars can be helpful for you to, especially connected to different stakeholders who may only be sort of involved in one aspect of your broader vision or destination.

Now step three is to pressure test what you came up with with the hallway question. If my CEO asked me right now, what am I building?

Could I answer this in 60 seconds without mentioning a single tool, project or a platform? Is this a yes or is this a no? And say it out loud actually. Time yourself. Measure yourself, record yourself. Use AI to fine tune it if you want to.

Now here’s where this gets practical. Don’t save this for, again, this annual strategy meeting or when someone actually says, what is your vision? That’s not what we’re shooting for. You wanna use it everywhere. When you have a stakeholder meeting, start off and say like, Hey, before we get into the details, let me ground us in what we are working towards.

And then you add this vision. We’re here to build this kind of outcome. And this project is one part of this. So this conversation is about that specific piece. That is level setting with a stakeholder who you wanna pick up at a high level, like a high altitude of where they’re operating, and then help them buy into the vision.

When a new joiner comes on board and they ask, Hey, what does your team do? We are responsible for. Right. You share your vision and right now the biggest thing we’re building is now you talk about a pillar, or you might even go into the details of a project.

If that new hire is somewhat involved and gets it in the skip level or in an executive check-in, you could say the two things that will move the needle most for us over the next 12 months are pillar one and pillar two, and here is where we are on each of them. Now, notice how every version leads with that destination and then drops into the tactical things only if needed. And that ordering matters because most people do it in re reverse, and by the time they get to the vision, the if at all, the other person is already mentally filed them as an executor, not as a strategic leader. So make that vision stick. And it’s not just about an abstract, weird statement, it’s concrete image-based language that lets people picture the future.

Like everyone operating from the same playbook is something that you can see, okay, I can see this alignment instead, when I say continued alignment of stakeholders. That is less tangible. So the more vivid and specific your destination, the more it coordinates behaviors across your team or stakeholders, even when they’re not in the room.

Now I wanna close with something else. When I see managers default to tactics and conversations, it’s almost never a communication issue. It’s an identity issue. ’cause they still see themselves as the person who does the work, not the person who sets the direction.

And so when someone asks what they’re building, they instinctively answer with proof of effort. Look at everything that I’m doing. Look at how full my plate is. But the leaders above you are not looking for proof of effort. They’re looking for evidence of your judgment and your strategy. And can you see the bigger picture?

Can you articulate where your team is headed and why that matters? Can you think one level above your current role? So proving effort keeps you at your current level while demonstrating the strategic, uh, vision and judgment is what gets you invited into the next level. So I hope this was helpful.

If you know someone else who would benefit from hearing this and plant some seats, then please share on this episode. Thanks so much and we’ll be back next week with another episode of The Manager Track podcast. Bye for now.

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How to quickly rise to success in your first leadership role? Check it out at our cova.org/books, or head on over to Amazon and grab your copy there.