2 Key Leadership Insights for Real Key Strategic Vision

Clarity for Preparing Your Team for Entering 2026!

For this blog, I bring forward a couple of key insights that are important to understand as we truly clarify our Strategic Plan and the factors we must be aware of as we create a real strategic plan for 2026.

Too often, many managers tend to focus only on superficial, rote thinking. When they do this, they unknowingly set aside their Neuroscience and their Mental Processing. As a result, they completely miss the real Situational Awareness that is involved. Many of these managers then make external excuses rather than achieving true success.

Because of this, I will include two key aspects that leaders must be aware of as we move into 2026.

Insight #1

Insight #1 is the increasing involvement of AI in today’s world. While the reader likely already understands this, I want to add an important level of awareness that leaders must recognize - and that they must also help their teams clearly understand so they can be properly prepared.

The reader likely knows that AI is rapidly emerging across many areas worldwide. When considering strategic planning and vision creation, it is important to realize that many AI interactions are inherently superficial. For example, when communicating with an AI contact voice on a phone call, the interaction tends to remain surface-level.

Even when an answer or solution is provided, it is often rote and academic and may not involve the true factors related to your specific situation. As a result, the answer given may not be the real answer that is actually needed.

One of the real Neuroscience challenges in this process is that AI may provide a superficial answer that causes leaders to set aside their own mental processing and simply go with what the AI says. When this happens, mental clarity is diminished, and thinking remains superficial. Because of this, when I contact various companies, I intentionally provide only a simple one-sentence response to the AI system so that I am transferred to a personal representative. This allows for discussion of the real factors involved, and the outcome is far more realistic than what AI alone would provide.

When you maintain this awareness and apply it intentionally, your solutions will be far more aligned with your team’s real situation and will lead to Truly Successful Strategic Application.

Insight #2

From news reports and other current world developments, the reader likely recognizes that there are significant differences in the types of people moving into leadership roles today, including within political environments. While the reader may already be aware of this, true leadership remains focused on the organization, the team, and what they are genuinely seeking to accomplish.

There are many leaders today who are committed to real leadership and achieving positive success for their teams, their clients, and the environments they serve. However, some individuals seek to control everything regardless of impact. Many of these individuals will never become truly successful leaders or make a meaningful difference.

These dysfunctional, control-oriented individuals are not suited for leading teams or organizations. They have no real desire to contribute to positive outcomes or to enhance what others are seeking to build. They are not focused on the success of the organization or the environment. Instead, they are focused solely on:

What They Personally Get & Receive!

This is totally dysfunctional and is NOT True Leadership.

I will offer a quote from the end of the Hollywood movie documentary of my life journey entitled “Bring Freedom to Potential”:

“IT IS NOT ABOUT WHAT YOU GET.IT IS ABOUT YOU DOING WHAT IS RIGHT!”

Questions for You as a Team Leader

1. How do you need to enhance your team’s awareness of these two insights - one to avoid and one to apply?

   
   

2. To what extent must you adapt your leadership application to strengthen both your own and your team’s clarity and enhance true Strategic Clarity?

   
   

3. How must you truly model and enhance clarity around these two insights within your team and help them apply their Neuroscience to ensure true clarity and wisdom for team success?

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Randy Swaim, Coaching for Relevance, LLC