50 Keys to Hiring a Strategy Leadership Consultant

Strategy and leadership consulting exists because organisations feel an expensive gap between what they say they are doing and what is actually happening. Strategic plans exist but delivery is inconsistent. Leadership meetings are busy but not decisive. Culture is discussed but daily behaviour contradicts it. Priorities shift faster than the operating system can adapt, and business goals remain unfulfilled despite significant investment.

The real insight most resources miss is this: strategy without leadership behaviour is just a document. Leadership development without business strategy is self-improvement theatre. And execution work without leadership alignment becomes compliance and rework. The strongest leadership consultants sit deliberately in the overlap, treating strategy, execution, and leadership as one integrated system rather than separate workstreams.

I have facilitated executive team offsites, coached CEOs and school principals, and worked with leadership teams across Australia, the United States, and beyond. What follows is everything I wish someone had told me before I hired my first strategy consultant and everything I now bring to my own work with senior executives and management teams.

If you are wrestling with strategic direction, leadership effectiveness, or building high-performing teams, I would welcome a conversation. Reach out at jonno@consultclarity.org to explore how we might work together.

Understanding What You Actually Need

1. Distinguish upstream strategy from downstream execution

Upstream strategy is about choices, trade-offs, and the few moves that change trajectory. Downstream execution is about translating those choices into decisions, sequencing, ownership, and operating rhythms. Most organisations say they need strategy when the real issue is decision rights, alignment, and accountability at the execution level.

2. Recognise that strategy is a choice and a commitment, not a catalogue

Many organisations have a strategic plan that is actually a list of good intentions with no trade-offs, no clear areas they will not pursue, no sequencing, and no real owner who can say no. A genuine corporate strategy forces uncomfortable choices about where resources will and will not go.

3. Identify whether your real blocker is clarity or follow-through

Start with the question: are we missing clarity or are we missing follow-through? Most organisations confuse these. If priorities keep changing, you likely have a strategy problem. If priorities are clear but delivery stalls, you have an execution and leadership behaviour problem.

4. Understand that consulting, training, and coaching serve different purposes

Training is primarily content transfer. Consulting is problem-solving and design. Coaching focuses on individual development. Many leadership development programs fail because they are content-heavy and context-light. Effective work uses the organisation's real challenges as the curriculum.

5. Map your symptoms to the right intervention type

Strategy problem symptoms include everything being a priority, leaders unable to articulate trade-offs, and decisions reversing frequently. Execution problem symptoms include clear strategy but slow delivery, vague accountability, and excessive rework. Leadership behaviour symptoms include conflict avoidance, inconsistent messaging, and passive resistance.

Diagnosis That Actually Reveals the Truth

6. Triangulate rather than trusting any single input

A real diagnosis is not one survey and a workshop. Effective diagnostics combine interviews with leaders and key influencers, observation of leadership meetings in real time, review of strategy documents and decision logs, and mapping of interfaces where friction and rework occur.

7. Do not accept surface problems at face value

When a client says we need leadership development, ask what is happening that makes them say that. What decisions are not being made? What conflicts are being avoided? What outcomes are slipping? Where does work get stuck? Ask for examples from last month, not last year.

8. Watch language for signals of avoidance

In organisations that are drifting, you hear phrases like we just need to align, we need buy-in, and we need everyone on the same page without specificity. These often signal that decision rights and priorities are unclear or leaders are avoiding conflict rather than resolving it.

9. Map the workflow from strategy to delivery

Where is the handover between functions? Where do approvals stall? Where do decisions get escalated unnecessarily? Where do teams duplicate effort? This reveals whether the issue is strategy clarity, operating model, leaders' capabilities, or leadership behaviour. It shows where small changes create leverage and helps you put the right people in critical roles.

10. Surface the capacity conversation early

Most execution failures are capacity failures disguised as alignment problems. The organisation has too many priorities, too many meetings, and too little time for deep work and follow-through. An effective consultant forces this conversation: what are we stopping, what is the sequence, what is the load?

If your organisation is struggling with too many priorities and not enough progress, I can help you clarify what matters most. Contact me at jonno@consultclarity.org to discuss your specific situation.

Engaging Strategy Consultants Wisely

11. Test for theory of the case, not just credentials

Ask potential consultants what they think is happening based on early signals and what they would test. How do they diagnose? What artefacts do they produce? How do they embed change? How do they measure? What do they do when leaders resist? Their answers reveal whether they can handle your reality.

12. Ask them to describe a time they advised a client to do less

If they have never de-scoped an engagement, they probably do not force trade-offs. Ask how they design decision rights, how they redesign meetings, and how they prevent a beautiful strategy from dying in weekly reality. These questions expose whether they understand execution.

13. Understand what drives cost before negotiating price

Pricing varies because scope varies. A one-day alignment workshop differs from six-month transformation support. Cost drivers include seniority of consultants, depth of diagnosis, custom design, scale, duration, and whether execution support is included. Know what you are buying and ensure it matches your specific needs and business objectives.

14. Watch for red flags in proposals and pitches

Over-emphasis on buzzwords without operational detail. Claims of ROI without explaining measures. Heavy reliance on a single tool as the answer to everything. A process that produces decks but no changed routines. An approach that avoids conflict and makes everyone feel good.

15. Look for green flags that indicate practical capability

They ask hard questions early. They can name trade-offs. They talk about decision rights, governance, and operating rhythms. They care about what leaders will do differently next week. They can work with tension in the room and develop effective strategies that address real business challenges rather than generic frameworks.

16. Clarify the actual client inside the client organisation

Is it the CEO? The executive team collectively? A board committee? HR? If the sponsor is not the true power holder, the work becomes theatre. Define decision-making authority, time commitment from leaders, access to information, and permission to name uncomfortable truths.

17. Build explicit kill and pivot criteria into the engagement

If by a certain point you cannot secure executive attendance, cannot access required inputs, or cannot get decisions, the approach should change. This protects everyone and prevents sunk-cost continuation of work that is not producing results.

If you want help evaluating whether your organisation is ready for this kind of work, reach out at jonno@consultclarity.org for a candid conversation about where to start.

Building Strategic Plans That Survive Reality

18. Write strategy so it is actually usable

Many strategies are too long for anyone to hold in working memory. A practical strategic plan includes the few priorities, explicit trade-offs, decision principles, success measures, and what changes in how work gets done. Include what you will stop doing or it becomes an additive wish list.

19. Translate strategy into unit-level implications

People want to know what this means for their function, their team, and their daily choices. Strategy that lives only at the enterprise level never reaches the decisions that matter. Each leader should be able to articulate how strategy shapes their priorities.

20. Design for strategy decay over time

Even well-designed strategies degrade as market dynamics shift, leaders change, and exceptions accumulate. Build quarterly strategy reviews that explicitly ask what assumptions have changed, what trade-offs need revisiting, and what you are saying no to now. This is how transformative leaders maintain competitive advantage.

21. Align time horizons explicitly across the leadership team

Strategy conversations often fail because leaders are unconsciously operating on different horizons. Some think quarterly, others multi-year. Surface time horizons explicitly: what decisions optimise the next 90 days, the next year, and the next three to five years? Many conflicts dissolve when horizons are clarified.

22. Use shared language to reduce friction

Organisations leak strategy through inconsistent language. Leaders use the same words to mean different things: transformation, priority, critical, urgent, strategic. Introduce explicit language rules about what priority means and how many priorities can exist.

Making Leadership Effectiveness Concrete

23. Improve decision quality and decision speed as the highest-leverage move

Many organisations are slow not because leaders lack intelligence but because decision rights are unclear, data becomes a shield, and leaders avoid conflict. Clarify what decisions belong where, what criteria matter, what information is sufficient, and what cadence decisions need.

24. Address the emotional contract leaders have with strategy

Many engagements fail not because the strategy is wrong but because leaders do not emotionally believe in it. They may intellectually agree while privately doubting feasibility. Emotional intelligence matters here. Listen for language like in principle or eventually, which signals emotional non-commitment and limits leadership potential.

25. Recognise identity threat as a source of resistance

Strategy shifts often imply the organisation must become something different, which threatens professional identity. Leaders may be asked to stop being the hero, stop controlling detail, or stop protecting legacy systems. Acknowledge identity loss while still holding the line on change.

26. Build the capability to have hard conversations early

Effective leadership requires critical thinking and the ability to surface conflict productively rather than avoiding it or personalising it. Great leaders develop their leadership skills by learning how to run productive conflict, challenge ideas without attacking people, and name elephants in the room before they grow larger.

27. Design for behaviour under stress, not behaviour in workshops

The true test of leadership development is whether behaviour changes when a deadline slips, when conflict rises, or when resources are constrained. Programs that only feel good in a workshop are insufficient. The work must include rehearsal, reflection, and reinforcement in real moments.

I work with executive teams to strengthen leadership effectiveness through practical application to real business challenges. If this is what your team needs, reach out at jonno@consultclarity.org.

Fixing the Meeting System

28. Treat meeting hygiene as leadership infrastructure

If the leadership team cannot run effective meetings, they cannot run the entire organization. Common meeting problems include too many updates, not enough decisions, unclear agenda purpose, lack of pre-work, no owner for decisions, actions not tracked, and conflict avoided by management teams.

29. Separate information sharing from decision making

Require pre-reads for updates. Use agendas that specify the type of conversation: decision, discussion, alignment, or problem-solving. Assign decision owners. Time-box topics. Capture decisions and rationales. Track actions publicly.

30. Build a meeting rhythm that matches organisational needs

Weekly execution meetings, monthly strategy reviews, quarterly deep dives, and annual planning. Design escalation pathways so issues are resolved at the right level. Create rules for conflict that challenge ideas without personal attacks.

31. Design the cascade beyond the executive team

It is not enough to fix the executive meeting. You need a meeting stack: executive, functional leadership, cross-functional delivery, and frontline operational rhythms. Define what decisions sit at each level to avoid pushing everything upward.

32. Create standard decision artefacts that force clarity

One-page briefs prevent decisions being made on rambling updates. If a decision needs cross-functional commitment, build a cross-functional forum that actually decides rather than a committee that discusses and escalates.

Designing the Operating System for Execution

33. Clarify decision rights at the interfaces

Most confusion lives between functions, not inside them. Use a responsibility mapping method that specifies who recommends, who decides, who executes, who must be consulted, and who must be informed. Make this explicit at handover points.

34. Make portfolio governance visible and actionable

Most organisations cannot list all active initiatives accurately. Make initiatives visible in one place. Categorise by strategic relevance. Assign single accountable owners. Define initiation standards. Build explicit escalation for overloaded teams.

35. Create a cadence for stopping work, not just starting it

Many organisations start work easily but stop work rarely. Stopping becomes a leadership discipline. Regularly review initiatives and ask what should be paused, merged, or discontinued to free capacity for what matters most.

36. Design operating rhythms that reduce cognitive load

Operating rhythms are not bureaucracy when done well. They reduce cognitive load because leaders know where things get decided and reviewed. They reduce rework because teams stop chasing shifting priorities. They increase trust because follow-through becomes visible.

37. Use budget and resource allocation as the truth-teller

Budget is strategy. Headcount is strategy. Time allocation is strategy. If these do not match stated priorities, the strategy is not real. Teach leaders to treat resource allocation decisions as the primary lever for culture and behaviour change.

For help aligning your operating system to your strategic goals, contact me at jonno@consultclarity.org to discuss advisory services tailored to your organisational needs.

Shifting Culture Without the Fluff

38. Align incentives before expecting behaviour change

If you want collaboration but reward individual heroics, you will get heroics. If you want accountability but punish bad news, you will get silence. Strategy and leadership consulting must address these systemic reinforcers, not just talk about values on posters.

39. Recognise that culture is the accumulation of micro-behaviours

Watch who speaks, who interrupts, who avoids, who follows through, who escalates, who blames. Culture is the accumulation of these patterns, reinforced by systems. Surveys can be helpful, but they are signals not truth. Interviews and observation reveal the lived culture.

40. Connect culture work to strategy execution, not standalone programs

Culture interventions fail when they push mindset change without changing daily reality. Effective culture work redesigns interfaces, routines, feedback loops, consequences, onboarding, performance conversations, and recognition systems.

41. Account for micro-culture variance across the organisation

Culture is not uniform. Different teams operate under different norms, pressures, and leadership behaviours. Enterprise-wide interventions often fail because they assume homogeneity. Identify where culture enables strategy and where it blocks it, then design targeted interventions.

42. Design trust repair when history demands it

In some organisations, trust has been damaged by previous initiatives, leadership changes, or broken promises. Strategy work without trust repair will stall. A holistic approach acknowledges past failures, renegotiates expectations with key stakeholders, delivers quick wins, and models new behaviours at the top.

Making Change Stick

43. Design for reinforcement, not just launch

What happens after the workshop is what matters. Many providers are workshop-heavy. Workshops can be valuable but only if they connect to reinforcement: operating rhythms, follow-through mechanisms, coaching, and management routines. Otherwise you get a motivational peak and a slow return to baseline.

If you want workshops that create lasting change rather than temporary enthusiasm, let us talk about what your organisation actually needs. Email me at jonno@consultclarity.org.

44. Build capability transfer into every engagement

How exactly does a consultant avoid creating dependence? Co-facilitate, document decision logic, teach frameworks through application, gradually reduce presence, and explicitly name what the organisation must own post-engagement. Capability transfer helps high potentials and top talent develop new skills as part of their leadership journey.

45. Engage the middle layer or watch adoption fail

Senior leaders can align in an offsite and still fail because middle managers translate mixed signals, manage competing demands, and absorb stress. Design the cascade: what decisions and messages land where, what behaviours are expected, and how accountability flows to and through the middle.

46. Sequence interventions based on the actual constraint

You often cannot start with culture change. You start with clarifying priorities and decision rights. Or you cannot start with leadership development if leaders are unclear on strategy. The right sequence depends on the constraint. Identify it and design accordingly.

47. Design for post-success drift, not just change creation

Many engagements work short-term and quietly unravel 6 to 18 months later. When performance improves, organisations often relax discipline. Meetings slip back into updates. Decision rights blur. Build decay prevention into the design from the beginning.

Measuring What Matters

48. Define leading and lagging indicators at three levels

Track organisational outcomes such as retention, productivity, financial performance, and customer outcomes. Track program outcomes such as decision cycle time, clarity of priorities, and meeting effectiveness. Track leader behaviour outcomes such as observed shifts in communication and follow-through.

49. Use measurement as a learning tool, not a weapon

Pick a small set of indicators that matter and that leaders can influence. Track them consistently. Avoid over-attributing results. Consider confounding factors. Use qualitative and quantitative data. Look for patterns rather than demanding perfect proof.

50. Avoid measurement theatre by focusing on real progress

Measurement is often oversimplified with bold ROI claims that do not explain what was measured, over what timeframe, against what baseline, or what confounding factors were controlled. A practical approach runs the engagement like a disciplined experiment with baseline, interventions, and review.

If you want a trusted partner to help your organisation achieve successful outcomes through disciplined strategy and leadership work, reach out at jonno@consultclarity.org.

Bringing It All Together

Strategy and leadership consulting works when it creates clarity, makes decisions happen, builds leadership capacity, redesigns the operating system, and sustains execution under pressure. The work is less about brilliant ideas and more about disciplined choices and consistent leadership behaviour from individual leaders at every level.

The organisations that get the most value are those that treat this as integrated work rather than separate workstreams. They invest in diagnosis before solutions. They force trade-offs and capacity conversations. They design operating rhythms that make strategic thinking and strategic planning process ongoing rather than annual rituals. They build internal capability rather than consultant dependence. They measure what matters and adjust based on evidence.

Great leaders understand that an organisation's success depends on having the right people in the right roles with the right leaders guiding strategic goals. Whether you need help defining strategic direction, strengthening your top team through leadership coaching, building a high-performing organization, or navigating a complex transformation, I would welcome the opportunity to explore how I might help.

Reach out at jonno@consultclarity.org to start the conversation. I work with corporate leadership teams, school principals, executive teams, and nonprofit boards across Australia and globally on executive coaching, leadership development, executive assessment, and team effectiveness. Let us discuss what your organisation needs and whether we might be great partners in driving your organisation's long-term growth and organizational performance.