If you want to advance into a senior leadership or C-suite role, developing the ability to think strategically is essential. While tactical thinking focuses on how to execute immediate tasks, strategic thinking involves seeing the bigger picture: challenging assumptions, connecting trends, assessing current capabilities, and planning for long-term impact. Plenty of articles explain what strategic thinking is and why it matters. But few explain how to build this capability when strategy isn’t an explicit part of your day-to-day work.

Drawing from our team’s experience interviewing thousands of senior executives, we’ve put together a practical framework to help early and mid-career professionals prepare for more strategy-forward positions.

Be Willing to Experiment

If you’re only comfortable working within your area of expertise or within established workflows, try stepping out of that comfort zone.

  • Seek out, recommend, or volunteer for projects with a defined goal but an uncertain outcome. This does not have to be a major initiative. Start by identifying processes that seem inefficient or outdated.
  • Ask questions like, “Why do we do it this way?” and “What would happen if we tried a different approach?” Look for small adjustments that could lead to meaningful improvements.
  • Collect data to support your thinking. Identify the resources needed to test a change, whether that includes staff time, budget, or leadership support. Define what success looks like within a specific timeline.
  • Test your idea, evaluate the results, and adjust based on what you learn. Are there other areas you could apply this thinking to? Did you learn anything that could inform your other work?

Evaluate the External Landscape

If you focus only on your immediate role, you might miss opportunities to adapt and improve. Paying attention to the external landscape (even if initially that just means looking beyond your own team), helps you anticipate changes and position yourself, your team, or your organization to adapt.

  • Look at others in your organization. Are there practices from other departments you could use to improve your approach? Have colleagues in different roles tackled similar challenges in a way you haven’t considered?
  • Expand that thinking to similar functions at other organizations. How do they approach the same kind of work? Are there strategies, tools, or processes you can adopt or improve upon? Are there gaps in their approach that you can address in your own work?
  • Take it a step further and research industry trends and external forces. What innovations, policy changes, or economic shifts could impact your work in the next six months or a year? How might they create risks or opportunities for your team?
  • Assess whether your team or organization is keeping pace with changes in your sector. Are you leading, following, or falling behind? If you are ahead, what is driving that success? If you are lagging, what obstacles are holding your team back?

Consider Multiple Scenarios

If you assume things will go according to plan, unexpected disruptions can throw you off course. Strategic thinkers prepare for different possibilities and build in flexibility to adapt when needed. Get in the habit of asking, “What if this doesn’t work?” and create contingency plans before moving forward.

  • Before committing to an approach, map out at least two alternatives. What are the potential risks, benefits, and trade-offs of each? Consider whether your plan is overly dependent on any single factor.
  • Identify key dependencies and possible disruptors. What factors could change the outcome of your plan? Which elements are essential for success? If circumstances shift—such as leadership changes, budget constraints, or market conditions—how will you adjust?
  • Debrief every project. Conduct post-mortems after both successes and failures. How did your assumptions hold up? Could a different decision have led to a better outcome? Document key lessons and apply them to future planning.

Engage Others in the Process

Strategic thinkers know they don’t have all the answers. They recognize the value of different perspectives and understand how to bring others in at the right time. Seeking input from others can help uncover blind spots and challenge assumptions, and often leads to better, more innovative outcomes.

  • Before moving ahead with a new project, gather input from people with different perspectives. Consult colleagues from different departments or roles. How do their insights challenge or reinforce your assumptions? What risks or opportunities do they see that you might have missed?
  • Be intentional about how you incorporate feedback. Not every idea will align with your expectations, but dismissing different perspectives too quickly can limit your thinking. How can you integrate new insights in a way that strengthens the project?
  • Build consensus strategically. Instead of just pitching an idea, anticipate resistance and proactively address concerns. Who are the key decision-makers? What aspects of your idea might create pushback? What kind of data or rationale will you need to bring others along?

Communicate in Terms of Impact

Even the best ideas will fail if they are not communicated effectively. A strong strategy needs buy-in, and that comes from presenting ideas in a way that resonates with decision-makers and inspires others to take action.

  • When you present a project or propose a new initiative, communicate the framework behind your thinking. Even if your idea isn’t perfect, a logical framework demonstrates how you challenged assumptions, gathered input, evaluated external factors, and considered multiple scenarios. Clearly explaining your reasoning helps others see the depth of your thinking.
  • Tie your work to organizational priorities and strategic goals. What problem does this solve? How does it support long-term success? If you struggle to connect your work to business outcomes, start by identifying how your role contributes to broader initiatives. For example, if your job involves streamlining internal processes, explain how it reduces costs, increases efficiency, or improves service delivery. Connect smaller actions to the bigger picture.
  • Adapt your communication style to your audience. If you’re speaking to leadership, focus on strategic alignment and business impact. If you’re presenting to peers, highlight efficiency, collaboration, and execution. Avoid getting lost in technical details—make it easy for others to see why your idea matters.

Make It a Daily Habit

Strategic thinking is often treated as an inherent capability, but like any skill, you can develop it through consistent practice. Look for ways to incorporate these types of habits into your daily work. What’s one small shift you can make this week? Pick something from this list, apply it, and notice how it changes your approach. You’ll not only strengthen your strategic mindset but also demonstrate your leadership potential to peers and supervisors.

Build incrementally and intentionally. When it’s time to interview for new roles or talk about advancement during a performance review, think about your work in terms of frameworks. What strategic approaches have you used that could help you succeed in another role or expand your responsibilities? Ask questions to uncover the business challenges you’ll need to address and show that you have a process to find possible solutions.

Keep Reading

Read this article next to learn how the Staffing Advisors team evaluates strategic thinking during senior executive interviews. You’ll find examples of advanced strategic thinking and how to talk about it.