Every leader I know wrestles with the same fundamental leadership operating system question: How do I deliver today while building for tomorrow? I recently spoke with a healthcare CEO who shared the internal tension she feels between meeting short-term expectations and achieving long-term goals. This challenge is not unique; it is echoed across industries by executives, managers, and supervisors alike. The pull between short-term demands and long-term goals is real, often intensified by limited resources, which can create the impression that leaders must choose one at the expense of the other.
Reflecting on this conversation and my own experiences, I return to a central question: why choose between short-term or long-term? What if leadership systems were designed to accommodate both? Let me share several perspectives that highlight how leaders can meet short-term expectations and long-term goals, instead of choosing between.
Let’s start with our children. There is no doubt they are subject to short-term expectations of parents, peers, and educators while also pursuing long-term developmental goals. It is a world of instant feedback, where every TikTok, Reel, or Snap creates a reaction from friends and family. Children want to express themselves and fit in with their peers in an environment that is changing day-by-day, even hour-by-hour, influenced by technology and instant communication.
They are doing this while also working to gain education and experiences that will allow them to contribute to society and provide for their families in the future. The short-term experiences of school assignments and extracurriculars such as learning the music so their instrument fits perfectly into the band or orchestra and practicing the right play at the right time so they contribute to the success of their team are examples of short-term expectations.
At the same time, building a support network starting with family, expanding into friendships, and eventually significant others, are human systems that support the journey towards their high school diploma, degree or certificates, and their contributions to community and care of family. As parents, we can help our children balance short and long term by understanding the day-to-day social and educational expectations and being observant that those are helping to achieve their long-term goals. In other words, guiding our children toward an “and” rather than an “or.”
I'm also reflecting on my participation in Katie Anderson's Japan Leadership Experience, an immersion into organizations, leadership, and culture/history that embody the principle of “and” not “or.” On the trip, we experienced organizations committed to generational employment while ever evolving to meet the needs of their customers. Each leader we met expressed their dedication to long-term goals. Frequently, the question came up in discussion with these leaders about the balance of short-term expectations and long-term goals and compared to the experience of leaders in American with those in Japan. No doubt, the degree of expectation is different; however, Japanese leaders face the same tension but have a more systematic approach to manage short term and long term.
A key takeaway from the Japanese Leadership Experience is that there can be attention paid to both long term and short term by allowing leaders to focus on the right topics for the right leadership level. Too many of the senior leaders I work with get pulled deeply into the day-to-day, which distracts time and attention from being out ahead of the organization and leading strategically. The companies we experienced make it a priority to allow the employees to solve daily problems. To achieve this, senior leaders create systems that support employees, helping to make problems visible while also building leadership structures that support the problem-solving process. Specific roles exist to coach an employee through the problem-solving process or to be a point of escalation when additional capability is needed to solve the problem to root.
These companies embrace the leader-as-coach role, rather than thinking of the role as additional overhead cost. They accept that daily problems will occur and have structures in place to address those problems while protecting revenue and expenses associated with quality, safety, and delivery problems. With these structures, senior leaders stay aware of what is happening day-to-day but aren't consumed with it, allowing them to concentrate more of their time on the long-term goals and the resources needed to achieve. The results of these management systems are organizations capable of meeting immediate needs and advancing long-term goals.
Finally, I reflect on CEOs who have demonstrated the ability to manage short-term expectations while remaining committed to long-term goals. Through recessions, a pandemic, and evolving customer and Board of Directors' expectations, these CEOs skillfully navigated by understanding the short-term expectations and placing resources to quickly adapt and deliver them. They also concentrated on their succession plan, developing the next leader, while planning and carefully studying the industry and trends to make sure their organizations can thrive with the right mix of technology and capabilities of their employees.
These CEOs put systems in place to stay informed of the short term with rapid Check and Adjust cycles and created the capacity for themselves (and more importantly their leaders) to define and experiment with long-term goals. Even in these longer, strategic planning and experimentation cycles, they established Check and Adjust milestones to adapt to the strategic projects meant to achieve the goals. In the end, these leaders demonstrated that when the leadership operating system is intentionally designed, organizations do not have to choose between short-term expectations and long-term goals — they can achieve both.
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At Value Capture, we partner with leaders to develop (or improve upon) systems that create:
This systematic approach creates the conditions for leaders to simultaneously achieve long-term goals and meet short-term expectations. To learn more, visit Value Capture’s website, attend an executive seminar, and reach out for a conversation.