The 12 Practices of Strategic Mastery We've entered an age when founders and leaders are rewarded less for how hard they work and more for how well they think, lead and make decisions.

In 2025, AI, geo-political volatility and shifting customer behaviour have made speed and agility essential – but without strategy, speed simply means getting lost faster. The truth is, most people were never taught how to be strategic. We're told to 'be more strategic' or to 'think more strategically' but rarely shown how. Strategic mastery isn't an abstract skill reserved for MBAs and 'people at the top'; it is a learnable set of skills, a progression of mindsets, behaviours and habits. Across 25 years working with entrepreneurs and leaders worldwide, I've codified what the best strategic thinkers and leaders actually do and develop into a framework of twelve practices, organised across four interconnected levels of development. Each level builds on the last – from mastering your self-awareness to scaling your impact. Together, they form a roadmap for thinking, behaving and leading with clarity in an increasingly noisy world.

LEVEL 1 | Deepen Self-Awareness
Before you can lead others, you must understand and manage yourself. Self-awareness is the foundation of all strategic work because every choice and decision you make starts in your own mind, informed by your beliefs and biases.

1. Understand Self
Great strategists know what drives them. They understand their strengths, blind spots and biases. Try a "human iceberg" audit: what sits below the surface of what people actually see and hear? Your values, beliefs and needs shape every choice you make. Awareness turns reaction into intention and meaningful choice.

2. Master Emotions
Your emotional state determines your strategic state. When your amygdala hijacks your thinking, clarity vanishes. Learn to regulate: pause, breathe, name what you're feeling, choose your response. Calm, composed leaders make better decisions as well as fostering calmer, more genuinely collaborative teams.

3. Embed Practices
Greater self-awareness only sticks when it becomes habit. Choose routines that improve your thinking disciplines: journaling, reflective walks, mindfulness, coaching conversations, playing with LEGO (seriously) or simply scheduling 'white-space' to process. Strategic thinking requires time to think, so build it into your routines deliberately.

LEVEL 2 | Cultivate Open-Mindedness
Once you've built inner awareness, expand outward. Strategy thrives on curiosity, shifting perspectives and disciplined, rational thinking.

4. Be (More) Curious – Be a Learner
Curiosity fuels innovation. Replace "I know…" with "I wonder if." Read outside your sector, ask more, better questions, explore opposing views – even if you vehemently disagree. For entrepreneurs especially, curiosity is the engine of reinvention.

5. Be (More) Present – Be a Listener
Listening is one of the rarest, and most strategic, skills in business and in leadership. Some might say it's a superpower. Listen for what is really being said – and unsaid. Learn to really pay attention, to better manage your distractions. Presence creates trust and insight, and insight precedes good strategy.

6. Be (More) Rational – Be a Critical Thinker
Think about your thinking. Use the RED model - recognise assumptions, evaluate arguments, draw conclusions – to challenge biases, shine lights on blindspots and sharpen judgment. Strategic leaders don't just collect data; they interpret it with discipline, objectivity and curiosity.

LEVEL 3 | Develop Strategic Capabilities
With open-mindedness established, you can strengthen the capabilities that define true strategic practitioners: unlocking creativity, managing uncertainty, and being more future-focused.

7. Be (More) Imaginative – Be a Creative
Creativity is applied imagination. Change the lens, environment or constraint to generate fresh ideas. Encourage playful thinking in your team. Iterate. Experiment. Creativity turns insight into possibility.

8. Be (More) Comfortable with Uncertainty
Uncertainty is inevitable; anxiety is optional. Train your brain to tolerate ambiguity by experimenting, learning fast and letting go of perfectionism. Communicate often – clarity of intent builds confidence even when outcomes aren't known or fixed.

9. Be (More) Future-Focused – Be a Visionary
The best founders are able to think 'future-back' as much as 'now-forward'. Picture the world you want to create, then work backwards to today's priorities. Create foresight, scan trends, run scenarios; look for patterns, risks and opportunities others may miss. Vision is strategy's compass.

LEVEL 4 | Scale Your Impact
Once you're thinking more strategically, you must act more strategically - deciding, collaborating and influencing so your ideas take root and scale in line with your ambitions.

10. Be (More) Decisive – Be a Doer
A strategy without action is … well, pointless. Distinguish reversible from irreversible decisions; move fast on the former, deliberate on the latter. Use the 80/20 principle to focus on choices that create disproportionate impact. Use the 40-70 rule to know when you're shooting from the hip (when you less than 40% of the information) – or have waited too long to act (more than 70%). Remember: perfect is impossible.

11. Be (More) Inclusive – Be a Collaborator
No strategy succeeds in isolation. Build diverse teams that challenge assumptions and co-create solutions. Psychological safety and trust turn debate into innovation. Inclusion isn't kindness - it's strategic advantage and improved performance.

12. Be (More) Persuasive – Be an Influencer
Even brilliant strategies fail if people don't buy in. Influence through clarity and connection: distil your strategic argument, link it to shared purpose, and tell a story that people feel, believe and remember. Strategy lives through world class communication.

How the Levels Work Together – and why they matter
These four levels form a ladder of strategic growth, up which progress is not linear; you'll loop back often. But as you move upwards, your ability to zoom out and in, to balance reflection with action, grows exponentially.

Strategic mastery isn't theory; it's practice. Like fitness, it compounds over time. When leaders – emerging or existing – adopt even a few of these practices, they stop firefighting. They create space to think, connect intentions with outcomes, and make smarter, braver, more meaningful choices and decisions.

Your next move:
Choose one practice and start today. Reflect nightly on what mattered most, and what will matter tomorrow. Build a rhythm of thinking before doing. Be more aware of what you notice, not what you know. Because when you change the way you think, you change what's possible. The twelve practices of strategic mastery aren't secrets. They're the building blocks of better choices, stronger businesses and more fulfilling lives. Be curious. Be courageous. Be more strategic.