Walk into any boardroom and you will find a strategy deck filled with bold ambitious goals, sharp frameworks, and competitive insights. Six months later, ‘( i prefer this -the real question remains: what has changed?) the only test that matters is what has changed.  

In many organisations, the thinking may be sharp, but the doing is scattered. High-performing leadership teams are distinguished not by the brilliance of their ideas, but by their ability to close the space between insight and impact. That space—between knowing and executing—is where strategies live or die. 

The Two Halves of Strategic Competence 

We have worked with executive teams across finance, public, technology, and energy. The most effective leaders operate on both ends of the strategy spectrum. 

Strategic Thinking 
They grasp complexity, frame problems in ways that unlock opportunity, model scenarios, and pressure-test trade-offs. 

Strategic Doing 
They convert decisions into action, sequence work, fund the bottlenecks, and deliver outcomes that Boards and investors can measure. 

Both capabilities are essential. Most leadership teams underperform because they excel at one and neglect the other. 

How to Tell Where You Are 

Mode	You are in this zone if…	You are stuck if…
Strategic Thinking	The problem is clear, the opportunity is sized, scenarios are defined, and a go or no-go trigger exists.	The strategy keeps being rewritten while no team, budget, or timeline has been secured.
Strategic Doing	Resources are deployed, a cross-functional squad is named, and real outcomes are being tracked.	Activity is high, but the strategic rationale and value case are not explicit.

Many organisations mistake motion for progress. They celebrate activity over traction. Traction is measurable movement on the outcomes that matter. 

A Simple Test for Leaders 

Ask for a one-page link between each strategic priority and four items: 

1. Customer outcome (for example, reduced onboarding time, increased activation) 

2. Financial outcome (for example, lower cost-to-serve, revenue lift) 

3. Risk outcome (for example, non-performing loans, service level agreement (SLA) compliance) 

4. Owner, timeline, and budget 

If this cannot be produced within forty-eight hours, the organisation remains in the thinking. 

Where the Best Leaders Shift Gears 

1. Define value in plain terms 

In 2024, the Dangote Refinery stopped spreading effort across too many fronts. The team focused on three immediate tasks: finishing mechanical work, clearing regulatory checks, and coordinating product distribution. That focus enabled local fuel supply to begin, diesel exports to neighbouring countries, and gasoline shipments to overseas buyers by mid-2025. It was not a new strategy; it was finishing what mattered most. 

2. Fund the constraint, not the noise 

MTN Nigeria faced a constraint: growing network capacity was not converting into active data users. Instead of launching new products, the team aligned infrastructure, affordable device access, and customer onboarding into a single flow. This shift unlocked a seven percent increase in active users and over thirty percent growth in data traffic between 2024 and 2025. Growth came by resourcing the bottleneck, not adding complexity. 

3. Measure what proves impact 

India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) grew by focusing on behaviour, not just technology. Rather than add new features, national leaders directed attention to merchant sign-ups, user education, and close tracking of where transactions were—or were not—happening. By June 2025, the platform handled over nineteen billion payments in a single month. The focus on usage habits, not just platform design, delivered scale. 

4. Show operational discipline at scale 

At Singapore’s port, rising container traffic in 2024 put pressure on turnaround times. Instead of rushing into new construction, leaders focused on better scheduling, real-time tracking, and efficient yard operations. More than forty-one million containers moved through that year—without disruption. Careful execution, not expansion, kept the system moving. 

What Gets in the Way—and How the Best Teams Fix It 

In our work with leadership teams, four strategy–execution breakdowns appear again and again. Here is how high-performing organisations address them: 

1. Too many priorities. Not enough focus. 
   Align senior leadership around three to five bold moves. Pause or sequence the rest. 

2. No follow-through after approval. 
   Establish a 90-day delivery rhythm. Review progress in sprints, not annual reports. 

3. Unclear ownership. Weak coordination. 
   Name accountable initiative leads. Give them access, authority, and executive backing. 

4. Boards see activity. Not outcomes. 
   Focus reporting on five outcome-level metrics. Track them consistently at executive and Board level. 

These simple shifts unlock traction and restore confidence—internally and externally—that the strategy is not just approved, but moving. 

The Final Discipline 

Elite leadership teams treat strategy as a system. They know when to think, when to decide, and when to move. They protect focus, stop weak bets early, and make results visible quickly. They can prove, on any given day, that their strategy is working. 

Act now: 
Select your top two priorities. Produce one page per priority that states: 

• The problem 

• The intended outcome 

• The first three moves 

• The three metrics that prove success 

• The named owner, timeline, and budget 

Then begin the first move this week. 

Author

Eni-Edom John