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\n\t\tOpinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.\t<\/p>\n
During the early months of COVID, I was leading a retail product business that suddenly found itself in the same position as thousands of others. Stores were closed, yet lease payments kept coming, and revenue had effectively gone to zero.<\/p>\n
Like most companies, we pushed aggressively into ecommerce. It was the right move, but while everyone was talking about the shift to digital, I kept coming back to a different thought.
With prices dramatically down, it was the best time in the world to sign retail leases and the need for human interaction would certainly come after the crisis.<\/p>\n
When we stepped back and looked at the broader context of the market, it became clear that there was an opportunity in front of us. So we did something that seemed counterintuitive at the time. We signed leases.<\/p>\n
Those deals became some of the most valuable locations the company would secure for years to come. The business outcome wasn\u2019t luck. It was context.<\/p>\n
Most leadership frameworks focus on role clarity and goal setting. Leaders are encouraged to define responsibilities, establish metrics, and align teams around outcomes. These practices matter, as they bring structure and accountability to an organization.<\/p>\n
However, even when roles are clearly defined and goals are well understood, leaders still make avoidable mistakes. The most common reason is that they overlook a critical variable, which is context.<\/p>\n
Context is the environment that determines whether your plan actually works. It includes internal dynamics like team capability and organizational structure, but also external forces like market timing, customer behavior, and economic conditions. When leaders ignore context, they often execute perfectly against the wrong assumptions, and that mistake is surprisingly common.<\/p>\n
According to McKinsey<\/a>, fewer than 30% of digital and business transformations fully succeed, which means the majority fail to deliver the outcomes leaders originally set out to achieve.<\/p>\n When leaders take the time to assess the environment around a goal, they improve the quality of their judgment and reduce the risk of sending teams in the wrong direction. Here are three things every leader should understand about context before directing a team toward a business outcome.<\/p>\n One of the quiet traps of leadership is assuming that once a goal is defined, the work is simply driving execution. In reality, a leader\u2019s first job is understanding the terrain the team is operating within.<\/p>\n When leaders skip this step, they often push teams into action before they fully understand the constraints around them. The market looks stable when it isn\u2019t. Internal alignment appears stronger than it really is. And leaders move forward believing customers value something they actually don\u2019t.<\/p>\n The data backs this up. Deloitte\u2019s 2024 Global Human Capital Trends<\/a> report found that many organizations struggle with effective decision-making because leaders lack clear visibility across their organization and the broader business environment.<\/p>\n That gap between perception and reality creates friction across the organization. Teams execute against goals that were set under outdated assumptions.<\/p>\n The takeaway is simple. Before telling a team what to do, leaders have to understand the environment themselves. Otherwise, they\u2019re just issuing instructions inside a fog.<\/p>\n Even strong leaders often underestimate how quickly external conditions can invalidate a strategy. Markets shift. Consumer behavior changes. Technology reshapes entire industries. Yet many organizations continue executing plans long after the conditions that justified them have disappeared.<\/p>\n That was exactly what made the COVID moment so unusual. While much of the retail world was abandoning physical stores entirely, the underlying market conditions were quietly shifting in the opposite direction. Lease prices were falling, landlords were under pressure, and the opportunity to secure strong locations at a discount was suddenly everywhere.<\/p>\n Consider how quickly macro forces can alter business outcomes. The International Monetary Fund\u2019s 2025 World Economic Outlook<\/a> highlights how shifts in inflation, interest rates, and supply chain dynamics continue to reshape global economic conditions and business costs across industries.<\/p>\n That kind of volatility means strategy cannot be static. The leaders who navigate turbulence best are constantly reassessing the context in which their businesses operate. They watch competitors, economic signals, customer sentiment, and technological shifts. They\u2019re not just asking whether the team is hitting the goal. They\u2019re asking whether the goal still makes sense.<\/p>\n Another challenge with context is that it rarely comes from a single source. Data, reports and research help, but some of the most important signals leaders need don\u2019t show up in a spreadsheet.<\/p>\n The most effective leaders I\u2019ve worked with consistently seek perspectives outside their immediate organization. They talk to operators in adjacent industries, ask customers uncomfortable questions and seek out advisors who have navigated similar challenges before.<\/p>\n In fact, in PwC\u2019s June 2025 Pulse Survey of CEOs<\/a>, 58% said they\u2019re changing how they make decisions by talking to other executives and encouraging more internal debate as they navigate uncertainty. Half said they\u2019re also bringing in external advisors to challenge their thinking.<\/p>\nBefore leading anyone else, understand the terrain<\/h2>\n
Ignore macro trends and your strategy will age overnight<\/h2>\n
Google won\u2019t give you the full picture<\/h2>\n