One could say that covalent bonding is more "directional" in the sense that the energy penalty for not adhering to the optimum bond angles is large, whereas ionic bonding has no such penalty: the ions should simply be packed as efficiently as possible.
One could say that covalent bonding is more "directional" in the sense that the energy penalty for not adhering to the optimum bond angles is large, whereas ionic bonding has no such penalty. There are no shared electron pairs to repel each other, the ions should simply be packed as efficiently as possible.