HBR Guide to Thinking Strategically (HBR Guide Series)

CHAPTER 24

How to Excel at Both Strategy and Execution

by Paul Leinwand and Joachim Rotering

For decades, we’ve often thought of leadership profiles in unique buckets—two popular varieties were the “visionaries,” who embrace strategy and think about amazing things to do, and the “operators,” who get stuff done. We intuitively knew that there must be leaders that span these areas, but in fact, few do. According to a global survey of 700 executives across a variety of industries conducted by Strategy&, the strategy consulting division of PwC, only 8% of company leaders were said to excel at both strategy and execution.

You Can’t Choose Strategy or Execution

You may think that success can be achieved by excelling at either strategy or execution ...