1. A third avenue to better strategy execution and operating excellence is proactively strengthening organizational competencies and competitive capabilities.

2. This often requires top management intervention.

3. Aside from leading efforts to strengthen existing competencies and capabilities, effective strategy leaders try to anticipate changes in customer-market requirements and proactively build new competencies and capabilities that offer a competitive edge over rivals.

4. Proactively building new competences and capabilities ahead of rivals to gain a competitive edge is strategic leadership of the best kind, but strengthening the company’s resource base in reaction to newly developed capabilities of pioneering rivals occurs more frequently.