I once worked with a SACCO that had just launched an ambitious five-year strategy. The CEO was confident, the Board applauded and the strategy document was colorful and well-written, beautiful enough to frame. But when I got a chance to engage with the Head of Operations to walk me through what the strategy meant for his team, he paused and said, “Honestly, we were not really involved in developing it. We are still waiting to be briefed on what’s expected.”
Right there, I knew the strategy was already on life support.
Here’s the brutal truth most executives do not want to hear: your middle managers are the oxygen of execution. If they don’t breathe life into your strategy, nothing will move. It doesn’t matter how elegant the Boardroom slide decks look. Strategy dies in the corridors of the middle.
Strategy without buy-in is hallucination
Strategy is not what you write. It’s what people believe and act on. I learned this the hard way growing up in Munteme village. If you wanted to mobilize neighbors to clear a path to the borehole, you didn’t start by giving orders. You started by getting the most vocal village elders to believe that clean water mattered. Once they were in, others followed.
Likewise, in organizations, middle managers are the village elders. They decide, often informally, whether a strategy is worth supporting. They control informal networks, influence team culture, and act as gatekeepers of execution.
During a strategy review for a top-tier insurance company, we discovered that while the executive team was pushing for “digital-first” operations, branch managers were still rewarding agents for old-school paper-based policies. Why? Because their KPIs hadn’t changed. The result? Confusion, resistance, and ultimately, inertia.
First involve, then expect belief
You cannot delegate belief, you must build it.
Here’s how I do it in every transformation assignment: I start by diagnosing, not prescribing. Like a good doctor in a Referral District Hospital, you don’t treat the patient before understanding their pain. I meet middle managers one by one. I ask what’s working, what’s not, and what they think success looks like. Often, they hold the most honest mirror to the business.
Then I take their inputs to craft a real strategy, not a fantasy. One that speaks to their actual constraints, realities, and dreams.
Leadership challenge, converting skeptics to believers
If you’re a CEO or Executive Director, here’s your challenge this week: identify one middle manager who seems disengaged or skeptical about your current strategy. Book a one-on-one meeting not to “update” them, but to listen. Ask:
a) What about our current strategy makes sense to you?
b) What parts do you think won’t work on the ground?
c) If you were in charge, what would you do differently?
Do not defend. Just document.
Then take what you hear to your next EXCO. Integrate it into the implementation roadmap. Once people see their fingerprints on the final blueprint, they own it. Once they own it, they defend it even when you’re not in the room.
Leadership tool (the Belief Heatmap)
Create a simple matrix with all your middle managers. Score each on two axes:
- Understanding of the strategy (Low to High)
- Belief in the strategy (Low to High)
Anyone in the “High understanding but Low belief” quadrant is your priority. They know the game, but they don’t trust the direction. Start with them, their turnaround becomes the domino.
Till next Tuesday,
Mr Strategy, Building legacies, not just strategies.
