The Truth About Being a Leader...and Nothing But the Truth

Truth 17What's the Big Idea? Bring Your Guiding Rules into Everyday Organizational Life

Our word strategy comes from the Greek strategos, meaning military general. This suggests that strategy is something that takes place at a high level. Although that may traditionally have been the case, in recent years the military, along with other organizations, has increasingly placed emphasis on empowering people at all levels. They take ownership of the organization's core values and strategy—its "big ideas"—and make decisions based on these daily.

If you want your staff to live by your organization's "big ideas," you must empower them to do so. You do this by communicating those ideas clearly. You also work out with them the practical ways in which ...