Strategy is about deciding what to do, execution about getting it done. Both are essential skills for a modern leader.

Yet another and perhaps more important skill lies between the two, in the realm of organization: the design of structures, systems, and mechanisms to guide and motivate the actions of employees and the critical task of implementing new organizational systems.

It is size, global spread, and complexity that have made organization so important. The chief executive of even a midsize company can’t oversee every employee or assume that orders from the center will be faithfully executed. Authority and accountability must be distributed, systems of control and inspection implemented, incentives to encourage desired behavior constructed. Most of all, a CEO must infuse the corporation’s work with meaning not just for those in the boardroom but also for thousands of employees. These days, a CEO has to be more architect than general: the job is to design working environments where thousands of people can figure out what they must do, cooperate to get it done, and experience it as personally fulfilling.

The task of organization is particularly challenging because most large companies are active not in one line of business but...