🚩 Tactical Memo 010: Being Seen as a Strategic Operator

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Welcome to Tactical Memo, my newsletter where I share frameworks, strategies, and hard-earned lessons for leaders navigating complex environments.

If you’re looking for my cheat sheets and deep-dive guides, the vault is linked at the bottom of this email.

The Briefing: Today’s Focus

• Why “Hard Work” Keeps You Trapped as an Operator

• The Rule: Perception > Contribution

• A Tactical Playbook: Signaling Strategic Value Without Pretending

• What’s Happening: General Updates

• A Reader’s Question: How to Escape the “Execution Trap”

Why “Hard Work” Keeps You Trapped as an Operator

Here is the irony. The harder you work, the more likely you are to be seen as operational.

Why? Because:

• Every task you complete trains people to give you more tasks.

• If you are always in execution mode, you have no bandwidth to shape direction.

• Senior leaders start to see you as capacity, not as a partner.

In practice, execution excellence often earns more execution. Which is why so many leaders plateau. They are trusted and reliable, but not invited into strategic rooms.

The Rule: Perception Shapes Advancement

Many leaders think strategy is about doing different work. It is not. Strategy is about being perceived differently.

You can be the sharpest thinker in the room, but if your visibility is tied only to tasks, you will remain categorized as an operator.

Being seen as strategic requires two elements:

• Substance: thinking beyond the task into risks, implications, and second order effects.

• Visibility: making that thinking obvious to the people who decide your future.

Without both, you stay in the box of reliable execution.

A Tactical Playbook: How to Signal Strategic Value

Here is the step-by-step system I give leaders who need to shift perception.

Step 1. Change the Question You Ask

Operators ask: “What do you want me to do?”
Strategic operators ask: “What outcome matters most here?”

At every meeting, redirect the focus from activity to impact. This signals altitude.

Step 2. Reframe Updates Into Implications

Avoid reporting in simple status terms.

• Operator update: “The draft is complete.”

• Strategic update: “The draft is complete, but there is a risk of stakeholder pushback if we do not socialize it this week.”

Strategic operators connect the dots to future consequences.

Step 3. Own a Slice of the Agenda

Request to take ownership of one agenda item that requires forward thinking: risks, scenario planning, cross team alignment.

Owning a piece of the strategic conversation forces others to see you differently.

Step 4. Speak in Altitudes

There are three altitudes of communication:

• Ground Level: tasks.

• Mid Level: projects.

• High Level: outcomes.

Strategic operators discipline themselves to spend at least half their airtime at the outcome level.

Step 5. Create Strategic Visibility Moments

Do not wait to be asked. Send concise one or two page notes to your boss or sponsor outlining:

• Risks to monitor

• Stakeholder dynamics

• Recommended next moves

This reframes you as a thought partner, not just a producer.

Step 6. Decline With Strategic Framing

Operators decline with excuses like “too busy.”
Strategic operators decline by showing tradeoffs:

This demonstrates judgment, not bandwidth.

What’s Happening – General Updates

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The Briefing: Reader’s Question

Q: “I have been promoted twice because I deliver results. But I am still not invited into strategic conversations. Senior leaders see me as the person who gets things done, not as someone who can shape direction. How do I shift that perception?”

A: You are experiencing the execution trap. Your reputation for delivery, which earned you advancement, is now holding you back.

Here is how to pivot.

1. Audit Your Visibility. List the last five times senior leaders engaged with you. Were you presenting outputs or shaping decisions? If it is mostly outputs, you now know why they see you as operational.

2. Elevate One Arena. Pick a single area where you will show up differently: risk analysis, scenario planning, or cross team alignment. Own that space visibly.

3. Redesign Your Updates. From now on, never give a raw status update. Always add the strategic consequence. Leaders will start associating you with foresight, not just output.

4. Proactively Offer Options. Instead of reporting problems, bring two or three possible solutions. Leaders recognize those who frame choices as peers, not subordinates.

5. Anchor Your Role in Outcomes. In one on ones with your boss, shift language from “I completed X” to “Here is how X moved us closer to the board’s priority.” Over time, your boss will start presenting you as a strategic partner.

Within 90 days of disciplined signaling, your reputation begins to shift. It is not politics. It is clarity. You are showing the system who you already are.

Cheat Sheet Vault

p.s… As promised, click below for my free cheat sheet and infographic vault

👉 Access the Vault Here

Until next time,
Justin

✍️ From the Desk of Justin Bateh, PhD
Real-world tactics. No fluff. Just what works.