Nato summits used to be oases of stifling courtesy and correctness. Not so much of late. Challenges from a belligerent US president that the country will “go their own way” if financial contributions from other states do not increase, and uncivil disagreement over Nato’s strategic direction are testing the organisation’s mettle.

That a 70-year-old mutual defence alliance should be concerned with strategy, a military quality by origin, ought to feel reassuring. But why do so many professional appraisals of aspiring middle or senior leaders conclude with a similar exhortation: that appraisees need to think more strategically?

This ill-defined and often only vaguely understood term can be a convenient substitute for effective developmental instruction. So how has it come to be so frequently invoked, with a holygrail-like status?

In our hypercompetitive, edge-seeking age there are few organisations that don’t champion their strategic credentials or intent. The armed forces, the NHS, businesses large and small, government departments, political parties, charities, schools and colleges: all are busily prefixing their plans, analysis, outcomes and objectives with the word “strategic”.

There can be little doubt that developing strategically is better than developing randomly. But how, exactly, does a decision, objective or initiative come to be endowed with strategy?

The term comes from the ancient Greek words stratos; a “dispersed army”, that requires agos, “command”, to organise and lead it. This military context stuck well into the early 1800s, refined as strategié - the art of generalship - in the Napoleonic era. Only in the past century has its use extended to encompass non-military matters. Although an expansion in meaning may be relatively new, the concept of strategy itself, that of planning with long-term aims in mind, is certainly not.

Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London, offers insight in his sweeping doorstop of a book Strategy: a history. From biblical times to the modern day, strategy has been explained as the ability to “look up from the short term and the trivial to view the long term and the essential” and to “address causes rather than symptoms, to see woods rather than trees”.

With the ubiquity of the term in mind, Freedman also notes dryly that “there is now no human activity so lowly, banal, or intimate that it can reasonably be deprived of strategy”.

Here are five ways to better understand and develop effective strategic thinking:

Use your brain (literally)

Recent research into how our limbic system functions provides some explanation as to why thinking strategically can be difficult. The process requires complex neural interaction between left-sided brain activity, used for rational or logical processes, and right-sided activity, used for inventive or creative processes.

Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats offers a useful metaphor for the sometimes-awkward switching that is required between different thinking processes. Like so many new techniques, practice and repetition can establish and embed new neural pathways and confidence.

Strategy vs tactics

A helpful parallel, in parlance since the Second World War, is the difference between strategic weapons used at long range, and tactical ones used at short range. Tactical matters - everyday implementation, operational issues and troubleshooting - can easily overwhelm and supplant efforts to look outward and long term.

Strategic thinking requires a strong sense of the overall purpose of activities and the defining of clear and measurable objectives, despite future uncertainties. It is, of course, exactly the presence of uncertainty and doubt that makes the relative comfort of absorbing oneself in tactical and operational matters far more attractive.

Think bigger

Strategic thinking is about more than just long-term planning. It means thinking outside of the concerns of a subject, section or department; a potentially awkward shift, because that narrow, focused mindset is highly beneficial in the early stages of a professional career.

It is, for instance, not always easy to see the immediate value in decisions and directions that may be in the best interests of the organisation but not of the department. Take time to understand the roles of others, and to ensure that others understand that roles of others, building bridges and relationships across sectors rather than fighting corners.

Challenge received wisdom

Building relationships does not mean being uncritical. Being open to challenges and willing to engage in debate are both vital. The art of depersonalising conflict is tricky, so establishing a group of sympathetic peers to objectively challenge existing thinking is incredibly valuable.

Seeing opportunity in risk, and risk in opportunity is central to strategic thinking. In doing so, do not be deflected from core challenges: how does this direction or initiative improve provision? How does this better achieve your aims? Too much focus on the thinking and not on the delivery leads us to the Churchillian jibe that “however beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results”.

Make time to reflect

Taking and making time to think and reflect is essential to strategic thinking. The less reflective and more reactive that decisions are, the more those decisions will be based upon what has worked before, not on what will work under new and different circumstances in the future.

Ultimately, strategic thinking is just that: thinking. It’s not a replacement for effective and supportive leadership but a complement to it.

Desert warrior Norman Schwarzkopf, leader of the coalition forces in the first Gulf War, put matters in their rightful order when he said that “leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy”.

Nick Gallop is headmaster of Stamford School

This article originally appeared in the 21 June 2019 issue under the headline ‘You don’t need to lead an army to have a strategy’