Strategic leadership in turbulent times

The ways managers use their creative problem-solving and strategic vision to help team members and an organization achieve long-term goals. That’s how Harvard Business Review defines strategic leadership.

Strategic leaders are visionary thinkers and long-term oriented. They make critical decisions under pressure and are adaptable and resilient. You can understand how strategic leadership is essential for managers to exhibit in turbulent times, such as economic downturns, crises and industry disruptions.

Given the current economic environment, it’s a great time to elevate your strategic leaders. Let’s explore how organizations can leverage strategic leadership to navigate volatility.

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Recognizing and Assessing Turbulence

Whether it be macroeconomic, political, technological or organizational turbulence, there always seems to be some tension happening. The first thing leaders should do is assess the turbulence to better understand whether it poses a threat to their organization.

There are a number of situational analyses I recommend using for an assessment:

• PESTLE Analysis, which helps scan the macro-environment across six dimensions
• SWOT Analysis, which gives a structured view of internal strengths and weaknesses alongside external threats and opportunities
• Scenario Planning, which helps map multiple possible futures, prepares your organization to flex depending on how events unfold

Below, I’ll give an example of each one:

PESTLE Analysis: Entering a new market or region (e.g., a US-based fintech company expanding into Latin America needs to understand political stability, regulatory compliance, economic conditions, etc.)

SWOT Analysis: Planning a turnaround strategy (e.g., a company underperforming in an increasingly competitive industry uses SWOT to diagnose internal gaps and external threats)

Scenario Planning: Evaluating the impact of technology disruptions (e.g., an auto lender modeling futures with/without widespread EV adoption or autonomous vehicles)

Equally important is the role of data and intelligence. Leaders need to stay close to real-time insights. Externally, examine indicators in market reports, policy forecasts and customer behavior. Utilize internal data to inform a dashboard that provides strategy with speed and clarity.

Simple Operations & Service Performance examples include:

• SLA adherence rates (e.g., percent of tickets resolved within two hours)
• New customer onboarding times
• NPS or CSAT scores by support channel or geography
• Process failure rates (e.g., declined payments, underwriting errors)

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Leaning into key characteristics

Embracing key characteristics, particularly during times of disruption, can make a strategic leader stand out. It’s not just about developing a good plan but also about how they execute against that plan and lead their team through uncertainty.

Strategic leaders are visionary thinkers who can see beyond the current moment. They’re able to make ethical and value-based decisions rooted in confidence and decisiveness in times of ambiguity while maintaining trust with stakeholders and ensuring decisions reflect purpose.

No matter how much pressure they’re under, they embrace organizational empathy and engagement. Leaders who listen, empathize and engage authentically with their people build the strongest strategies. These attributes build lasting loyalty and foster unity within the organization.

You’ll often find these leaders possess:

Visionary thinking and long-term orientation

Example: Jeff Bezos (Amazon): Bezos famously prioritized long-term growth over short-term profits. He reinvested heavily in infrastructure (e.g., AWS, Prime, logistics) with a 10–20 year horizon. His 1997 shareholder letter emphasized long-term market leadership, which remains a blueprint for visionary strategy.

Decisiveness while under pressure

Example: Winston Churchill (UK Prime Minister during WWII): During the darkest days of WWII, Churchill made clear, swift decisions (e.g., rejecting peace with Hitler) and rallied Britain with unwavering resolve. His speeches and actions demonstrated clarity, conviction, and decisive leadership under existential threat.

Adaptability and resilience

Example: Satya Nadella (CEO, Microsoft): Nadella reshaped Microsoft’s culture from a combative, insular organization to one that embraced cloud, open-source software, and collaboration. His pivot from legacy Windows-first thinking to cloud-first and AI-led growth helped revitalize the company.

Ethical and values-based decision-making

Example: Paul Polman (Former CEO, Unilever): Polman eliminated quarterly reporting to focus on sustainability and long-term shareholder value. He aligned Unilever’s business goals with environmental and social responsibility, often placing ethics above immediate profits.

Organizational empathy and engagement

Example: General Stanley McChrystal (Ret. US Army): As head of Joint Special Operations Command, McChrystal reshaped military leadership culture by flattening hierarchies, fostering trust, and creating transparency across units. His “Team of Teams” model emphasized empathy, inclusion, and adaptability.

Core Strategies for Leading Through Turbulence

There are core strategies leaders should lean into when leading their team through turbulence. Applied in action, this can look like:

1. Articulate clarity of vision and communication

During times of uncertainty, people seek direction. When communicating with your team, take time to define and reaffirm your organization’s core purpose. Communicate with transparency, even if that means acknowledging the unknowns while reinforcing what remains true and where you're headed.

2. Agile Decision-Making

During turbulence, there will be very few things that you can predict, but that doesn’t mean you can’t build systems that allow you to make quick, informed and adaptable decisions. There’s a framework I like to use to guide rapid, iterative decision-making, such as the OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act).

Here’s a strong example of the OODA Loop in action, using Apple’s response to the smartphone market under Steve Jobs, illustrating how the OODA loop enabled strategic agility and market dominance.

Apple observed:

• The rapid rise of mobile phone usage and growing dissatisfaction with complex smartphones like BlackBerry and Windows Mobile.
• Consumer frustration with clunky interfaces and limited mobile web capabilities.
• Trends in mobile music (iPod’s dominance) and emerging mobile computing demand.
  
  

Apple oriented their thinking:

• Synthesized market observations with internal capabilities in hardware, software, and design.
• Recognized a strategic advantage in its control of the ecosystem (iTunes, iPod, macOS).
• Reframed the smartphone not as a “phone with extras” but as a handheld computer.
  
  

Apple decided to:

• Build a revolutionary new product that combines a phone, an iPod, and an internet communicator.
• Create a closed, highly curated ecosystem for mobile apps (App Store).
• Skip market validation and instead set a new consumer expectation entirely.
  
  

Apple acted:

• Launched the first iPhone in 2007 with a groundbreaking touch interface and sleek design.
• Followed up quickly with iterative hardware and software updates.
• Scaled a powerful developer ecosystem via the App Store in 2008.
  
  

Why this is a great OODA example:

• Apple cycled faster than competitors by integrating user feedback, design capabilities, and software control into a unified vision.
• Jobs and his team continuously observed consumer pain points and oriented themselves away from industry norms.
• Apple didn’t just react to competition—they reset the game.
  
  

3. Empowering Teams

People on the ground often have the clearest view of what's happening. Decentralize authority where possible and empower frontline leaders to act swiftly within strategic guardrails. You can build trust by giving teams ownership.

4. Scenario Planning and Strategic Foresight

Think like a chess player. Consider multiple moves in advance. Develop various “what-if” scenarios and stress-test your strategies to ensure they are robust. You can also focus on creating optionality by investing in projects, capabilities or partnerships that keep you nimble.

An example might be, “What if real-time payments (RTP) become the standard in 12 months?” This would force you to ask a higher level of strategic questions:

• What if instant money movement becomes the default, and our 1–3 day ACH model becomes obsolete?
• How do we protect margin if customers demand free or low-fee RTP?
• Can our fraud and compliance systems scale with 24/7 real-time risk exposure?
• How would our cash flow, servicing operations, or lending models be impacted?
  
  

5. Leveraging Organizational Culture

Your company culture is a key factor in determining if you can weather an economic storm. During these times, shared values can help to unify your team by reinforcing a sense of belonging and direction when things feel unstable.

It’s unrealistic to think that, as a leader, you’ll never have to navigate turbulence of some kind. Getting through won’t be easy, but how leaders respond will make a big difference.  

The most effective leaders today are those who can see the big picture while navigating the present moment with purpose, empathy and decisiveness. They empower their teams, use data to inform their foresight and maintain an unwavering commitment to their values.

The advice I leave you with is to start cultivating strategic leadership as a continuous discipline. It’s a mindset and skillset that every manager and team leader can develop. Make space for reflection, scenario planning and purposeful conversations. Invest in leadership development, especially for those who guide others on a daily basis.