When strategic roles are neglected, organizations tend to focus on short term goals and success and ignore long term goals leading to lack of strategic direction. The purpose of this article is to explain the strategic roles of executive management so that they move away from operational activities. The model below outlines eight strategic roles that should be included in executive managers performance contracts. The first important strategic role of executive managers is governance which is the ability of the board and management to consistently make impactful decisions and comply with set rules and standards of the organization. One of the signs of good governance is the ability of the Boards and Exco to hire competent managers who have the strategic acumen to drive the vision of the organization. However, this is not happening because almost every country is concerned with poor strategy implementation and inadequate service delivery because they hire wrong managers who lack requisite competency of influential leaders. 

Organizations should have governance cloud ecosystem that can allow both management and board to meet changing stakeholder expectations and adapt to the VUCA world. The second strategic role is organization culture which is a very important in ensuring effective implementation of the corporate strategy and building a resilient and vibrant organization. Many organizations are suffering from cultural crisis because it is destroying internal relationships, operations and is very rigid to adapt quickly to the fast-changing world. The biggest cultural problem organizations have is their inability to unlearn old habits, old values, old attitude, old thinking, old methods, old strategies, old models, old tools so that they create a room to learn new habits, new values, new attitude, new thinking, new methods, new strategies, new models and new tools that are fundamental in attaining excellence. The third strategic role of executive managers is strategy planning and review which the process of developing the organisation vision, mission, values, strategic choices and constantly monitoring the implementation and achievement of strategic initiatives and targets. 

This strategic role requires the organisation to define strategic positioning, follow best practices when developing the strategy and establish strategy implementation philosophy, and agile mindset of reviewing the strategy to align it to the changing environment demands. The biggest problem organisation have is that once the strategy is developed, subsequent activities like strategy communication and monitoring are neglected. This is why many organisations are failing to implement two third of their strategic initiatives. The fourth strategic role is managing organisation performance, which entails defining and developing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) at strategic level and operational level and then monitor their achievements using organisational dashboard. This is one of the most neglected strategic roles because executive management use reactive approaches of managing their departmental and organisational performance. As a result, they see performance problems when it is too late to make corrective actions.  Tools such as Failure Mode and Effect Analysis, Gemba walk, strategy scorecard, balanced score card and SWOT matrix can be used to manage performance in a proactive manner.

The fifth strategic role of executive managers is organisational renewal which the art of creating a responsive internal environment that does not only change to adapt but rather that enjoys setting the industry innovation trends. Executive managers’ s role is to create an environment that promote creativity, adjusts thinking and behavior to resiliently face change, and uses experience to fuel growth. Embraces failure as a learning opportunity for themselves and others. Enables the process of change and transition while helping others deal with the effects of change. The sixth strategic role is managing stakeholder relationships which is the process of identifying and categorizing stakeholders in terms of their influence and power (importance) and then managing their relationships by constantly meeting their expectations and interacting with them to demonstrate care and empathy and understand their changing needs. The seventh strategic role is strategic networking which is the process of identifying and building relationships with potential strategy implementing partners, financers and professional experts who can be used to help in building the organization capacity and capability to deliver. The eighth strategic capability is business sustainability which is the process of streamlining the business operational system to ensure that the organization remains resilient and sustainable.