The strategic part of leadership is in developing, cultivating and filtering ideas, with the ultimate goal of firming up the strategy/focus for their team. Arguably, the harder and more time consuming part of leadership is Execution. Strategy is the plan and Execution is the action. The easiest way to think about what it takes to execute is to compare it to what it takes to create new habits:

1. We have to get ourselves right first and put in place all the self controls and inspection points to ensure new habits will be formed; It starts with us as the leader
2. The value of forming a new habit has to be sold, and the leader is the salesperson until the habit is formed and becomes part of the culture. The leader has to coninuously evangelize the attractiveness of the new habit, as well as the resulting satisfaction; remember that the team does not fully grasp or buy-in to your vision until they have experienced it
3. It takes time. All studies have shown that consistency over a long period of time is what it takes to form new habits. They are never formed by just laying out the strategy and expecting that all have heard it and that they will take all the actions on their own to form new habits. NOT GONNA HAPPEN….The execution must be planned so that it is delivered in chunks and with multiple iterations and consistent inspection points
4. It is our job to make it easy