70% of CEOs say their strategy is clear. (Only 10% of their teams agree.)
That gap?
It’s where misalignment lives. Where priorities get lost. Where momentum dies.
If you’re scaling a company, there’s nothing more dangerous than thinking your strategy is clear— when it’s not.
👉 That’s why my Wheel of Strategy matters.
It breaks strategy down into 4 essential areas.
And challenges you to answer 20 dead-simple, high-impact questions:
🧭 Purpose & Direction 1. Why do we exist? Who actually needs us? 2. What’s our mission in one clear sentence? 3. What do we believe that drives how we operate? 4. Where do we want to be in 3 years? 5. What would success look like if nothing held us back?
📊 Market & Advantage 6. Who is our highest-value customer? 7. What pain are they feeling every day? 8. What’s changing in our industry? How do we stay ahead? 9. Why do people choose us—or not? 10. What can we offer that’s hard to copy?
📈 Goals & Metrics 11. What are our top 3 priorities right now? 12. What does success look like this quarter? 13. What’s the one number that matters most today? 14. How do we review progress each week? 15. What milestone will tell us we’re winning?
⚙️ Actions & Tactics 16. What must we deliver in the next 90 days? 17. Who owns each outcome? By when? 18. What’s currently blocked? How do we fix it fast? 19. What quick wins will build momentum now? 20. When and how will we check in and adjust?
No fluff. No 50-slide decks. Just strategic clarity—fast.
Save this sheet.
Use it in your next: — Leadership meeting — Quarterly reset — Or offsite
If you and your team can’t answer these questions confidently...
It’s time to go back to the strategy table.
Because real alignment doesn’t come from louder messaging.
It comes from sharper thinking.
Credits toEric Partaker, follow for more insightful content.
Highly successful CEOs share habits like ** relentless learning, focusing on strategic vision, prioritizing health, effective delegation, building strong networks, clear communication, fostering a growth mindset, and disciplined action**, often starting days early with clear priorities and minimizing distractions for impactful execution and resilient leadership.
Here's a checklist of common habits for successful CEOs:
Time Management: Ruthlessly manage time and avoid multitasking to stay productive.
How to Use This Checklist:
Self-Assess: Rate your consistency in each area.
Identify Gaps: Pinpoint 1-2 habits to focus on improving this month.
Seek Accountability: Share with a mentor or peer for support.
https://tinyurl.com/bde6v98y
Time is our most precious resource. Every CEO will need to commit to effective time mastery behaviours in order to “win the war for talent” and accelerate business results.
1.Develop a 3-year Career BHAG
Explore all options. Combine passion with competence and need to achieve extraordinary results. Develop a plan to achieve your career BHAG. Think and act world-class to achieve your full-potential.
2. Let go of the decision.
List your top 30 work-related activities. For each activity, assess your ability to do each one based on the descriptions below:
Masterful: extraordinary ability; passion; gives you energy
Excellent: superior ability; no real sense of passion
Competent: adequate ability; boredom; little improvement in performance over time
Spend most of your time on masterful and excellent activities and delegate the competent and incompetent activities to accelerate results. Caution: Delegation without coaching and mentoring does NOT work!
3. Spend your time wisely.
What are the three most important activities on which you need to focus to deliver extraordinary results? Plan your time every day, week, month, quarter and year and you’ll be on the path to achieving your full potential and producing extraordinary results in all aspects of your life. Do you have a 90-day action plan.
4. Identify your top 20 list of 360 degree stakeholders. Business is about people. Do everything you can to build relationships with your stakeholders and help them be successful. Know why people would want to build a relationship with you. Practice the following simple, yet powerful, relationship-building strategies: Keep commitments; start on time and end on time; finish what you start; say please and thank you.
5. Take 100% responsibility and accountability for your own ability to influence.
Focus on outcomes. Clarify expectations with 360 degree stakeholders (board/boss, peers, direct reports, customers). Claim the D. Dial-up assertiveness. Minimize frustration.
6. Take control of your life balance. You are 100% responsible for achieving your full potential in all aspects of your life. Assess how satisfied are you with the following: career, health, financial situation, spouse/partner, friends/family, personal growth, home/physical environment, social responsibility and fun. Set goals and enjoy the bumpy journey of life. Be assertive with your 360 degree stakeholders to manage expectations and ask for what you want. Stop judging others. Life balance is personal.
7. Build your Skills, Behaviours and Experience (SBE) toolkit. The higher you go, the more critical leadership success behaviours are to your success. Read the HBR article, “Coaching the Alpha Male” to learn more about the following success and (derailment) behaviours:
Self confident and opinionated (intimidating)
Highly intelligent (demeaning)
Action oriented (impatient)
High-performance expectations of oneself and others (always dissatisfied)
Direct communication style (CYA culture)
Highly disciplined (burnout)
Unemotional (not inspiring)
Leadership coaching, 360 feedback, job shadowing and mentoring are very effective approaches to learning success behaviours.
8. Reach out to internal and external mentors and coaches. Surround yourself with people who inspire you to learn, grow and achieve your full potential. Be courageous and ask for help.
9. Take risks and don’t be afraid to fail. Learn from your mistakes and move on. Ask for forgiveness, not permission. Failure and rejection build character so don’t be attached to the outcome. Read Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway by Susan Jeffers.
10. Set ideal outcomes, always do your best and celebrate your success. Increase your ability to identify compelling ideal outcomes and get out of your comfort zone. Understand your starting point and work towards achieving your ideal outcomes. Look back to celebrate the progress you have made from your starting point. Avoid beating yourself up if you don’t achieve your ideal outcomes. You are good enough now and you are on a life-long journey of progress toward ideal outcomes. Strive for success, not perfection. Take five minutes every day to celebrate success and to identify your three most important accomplishments.
11. Coach, mentor and empower others to be accountable for results. Use influence, NOT position power. Listen first and listen 80/20. Dial-up empathy and use your SBEs to help others be successful. Ask questions to help people identify issues and options and make effective decisions. Stop telling people what to do and how to do it.
12. Believe in yourself and build self-confidence. Get smarter every day by building on strengths (www.strengthsquest.com) and using the “feedback is a gift” principle. Don’t take anything personally. Invest your time, money and resources to improve your SBEs. Read like crazy.
13. Be happy now. Life is short. You are only one thought away from being happy with your life. Read: You Can Be Happy No Matter What: Five Principles for Keeping Life in Perspective by Dr. Richard Carlson.
74% of problems get solved at the symptom level. (That’s why they come back.) Credits toEric Partaker, make sure to follow! ________ Top CEOs don’t just move fast. They move smart. Because solving the right problem beats solving the wrong one quickly. Here are 5 mental models every founder and CEO should keep in their toolkit: 1. Pre-Mortem Analysis ➟ Plan like failure is inevitable. ➟ Spot what could go wrong—and fix it before it happens. ➟ Use this before launches, hires, or high-stakes bets. 2. The 5 Whys Framework ➟ Ask “why?” five times. ➟ It sounds simple. It’s not. ➟ Most teams treat symptoms. This digs deep and finds the root. 3. Decision Tree Analysis ➟ Map your options. Visualize outcomes. ➟ Use it when the decision involves people, capital, or risk. ➟ It brings clarity to complexity. 4. Rapid SWOT ➟ Quick clarity in chaotic moments. • What’s working? • What’s broken? • Where’s the upside? ➟ Perfect for offsites, pivots, and team resets. 5. Impact vs. Effort Matrix ➟ Every task has a cost. ➟ This filters the noise and focuses your team. ➟ So you move fast—on the right things. When pressure’s high, frameworks reduce decision fatigue. They create structure in chaos. And help you lead with consistency—even in uncertain moments. Mental models aren’t just tools. They’re multipliers. The better your thinking, the better your outcomes. Most CEOs don’t lack effort. They lack a thinking system. Save this. Use it before your next big decision. Smart leaders don’t guess. They model their way forward.
