I find SEO both fun to do and powerful for a business. In order to have the freedom to do it inside organizations, SEO leaders need to understand how to strategically communicate to executives and how to mobilize a team to action on the strategy. Executives are important because they’re deciding on what to fund and put resources to. The team is insanely important because they’ll execute the action agenda that drives the results. I’ve seen leaders be really good at one and not the other in either direction which isn’t the end of the world but I find diminishes the fun and power of SEO. I am on a journey myself to get effective at both.
The thing on my mind lately is the strategic aspect. People can ask for more strategy when you drill into an action. The key thing I’ve learned is they aren’t trying to 100% stay clear of actions as they’ll ask about actions right after saying they want more strategy. They want the actions too but they need to be oriented to the actions with a framing of the strategy and the opportunities.
When you go into updates about your roadmap, lead with opportunity buckets and guiding policies of your strategy. Have a visual that will bring people along quickly. Show that every time. I’m sure questions about the actions will come after that.
You don’t need to be in a leadership position to practice this. Try it with your manager.
I’ll be over here working at this myself too.