"Be More Strategic" Is Not Feedback

"Be more strategic" is not feedback. It's a verdict dressed up as help. It tells a person you're dissatisfied without telling them what to actually do, so they walk away anxious, guessing, and exactly as stuck as before. I've watched more careers stall on vague feedback than on honest criticism.

In 25 years of working with leaders, I've collected a lot of these phrases. Be more strategic. Show more executive presence. Be more proactive. They feel like guidance when you say them. On the receiving end, they're fog.

What's actually wrong with "be more strategic"?

It's a personality verdict, not a request. It describes a category of person the speaker wishes they were, with no action attached. More strategic — compared to what? In which meeting? Doing what instead of what?

Give someone that and you've handed them a problem with no handle. They can't do "more strategic" on Monday. They can only worry about it. And worried people don't get more strategic; they get more cautious, which is usually the opposite of what you wanted.

How do I make feedback specific enough to use?

Name the behavior, the moment, and the difference. Instead of "be more strategic," try: "In the planning meeting, you jumped to solutions in the first five minutes. If you'd spent that time on which problem we're actually solving, the room would have followed you." Now there's something to do — a specific behavior, in a specific place, with a specific better version.

The test I use: could the person act on this on Monday morning without asking me a follow-up question? If not, I haven't given feedback yet. I've just announced my disappointment and made it their job to decode it.

Doesn't specific feedback risk sounding harsh?

Specific is the opposite of harsh. Vague is the cruel one. "Be more strategic" leaves someone lying awake rewriting their whole self-concept. "Start the meeting by naming the problem" is small, doable, and kind, because it treats the issue as a behavior they can change rather than a flaw in who they are.

The warmth isn't in softening the message. It's in making it usable. When I tell someone exactly what to adjust, I'm saying I think they can adjust it. That's more respectful than a compliment that leaves them nowhere.

What if I don't actually know what I want them to do?

Then you owe them the work of figuring it out before you open your mouth. A lot of vague feedback is really unfinished thinking handed to someone else to sort out. If you can't name the specific behavior, sit with it until you can, or say plainly, "something's off in how these meetings land and I haven't pinned it down yet — let's work it out together." That's honest. "Be more strategic" pretends to a precision you don't have.

There's a mentorship version of this too. The point of feedback was never to rate someone. It's to hand them something they can use to get better. Rating is easy and changes nothing. Teaching is specific, and specific is what people can act on.

Watch your own language for a week. Every time you're about to tell someone to be more something, stop and ask what you'd want them to do differently in the next actual meeting. Say that instead. The whole value of feedback lives in the part most people skip.

If your one-on-ones are full of feedback that isn't landing, that's a fixable problem and a good one to talk through. You can book a discovery call at https://calendly.com/jamiemasoncohen/discovery-call.