From Episode 85 of The Complete Leader Podcast

Imagine a coworker tells you they’re going to a soccer game tomorrow.

Immediately, there is a certain image you capture about what that experience will be like, depending on what you know about your colleague. You might envision a child’s school match with a field marked by orange cones, or picture a large stadium with roaring crowds, nachos and hot dogs in hand.

Either way, you both have a common understanding of what a soccer game is. It’s a concept you hold in your mind because you share a common language. This is conceptual thinking at its root.

Conceptual thinking is the ability to understand something at an abstract level. If you break it down, thinking is the way that you process things and develop understandings. A concept is an idea that you hold in your mind or the definition you have behind a word or situation.

When you use conceptual thinking, you may be working to be able to see the big picture, the why, the cause and effect—to see something at an abstract level without having to physically observe it with your senses. And if you can understand the concepts behind what you’re talking about, the what and why of what is happening, you can think further to determine how to alter the results. It’s no wonder conceptual thinking is crucial for effective leadership.

In The Complete Leader, we break down three buckets of essential leadership skills: Leaders as Clear Thinkers, Leaders Lead Themselves, and Leaders Lead Others. Conceptual thinking falls under Leaders as Clear Thinkers and aids leaders in creating clarity for those who follow them. It’s one of the most important things a leader can do, to offer a sense of clarity. To create a sense of ease in knowing where you are going and why, and to leave behind second guessing.

To grow your conceptual thinking skills, grow your own understanding of what’s going on around you and why and use that knowledge to create clarity for your followers, you can use the diagnostic pathway. To do so, you must ask yourself these four questions:

What results are you getting? No matter what it is that you are working on, whether at work or in your personal life, think about the results you are achieving. What do you like about them? What parts would you like to improve? This is a good place to start.

What behaviors are creating those results? A result doesn’t happen without a behavior. Which behaviors are helping you achieve those results, and which are hindering you?

What systems are in place that drive those behaviors? Perhaps you are working on your financial planning. How and when you pay your bills is a system—which then creates behaviors that create results. Do you have a reminder set up to pay your bills each month, or do you hope you’ll remember before the due date? Review your systems to determine if they are creating the behaviors you want, or if they are creating unintended results that hinder you.

What beliefs or assumptions cause you to create those systems? Think about your beliefs, or those of your organization or leadership, that lead to the current systems you have in place. How are those assumptions getting you there?

In following these questions—stepping from results to behaviors to systems to beliefs—through different problems or opportunities will help you exercise your conceptual thinking skills. You can reverse the process to build on what’s going well, too. Think about the assumptions or beliefs that you want to nurture within yourself, your team or your organization that will create the kinds of systems that will develop the types of behaviors to generate the results you want. Soon you’ll see this pathway everywhere you go.

Photo by David McEachan via Pexels.