Strategic Leadership
The term ‘strategy’ is very common in the business world today. However, the word ‘strategy’ has been broadly used that it has lost clear meaning. Despite the significance of strategy, there is astoundingly little consensus on what it means. Nonetheless, the fact is that behind every success, there must be a strategy. A strategy is an ambiguous term normally linked to long-term planning, prearranged goals, and a preferred system of creating a balance between the organizational resources and externalities. The contemporary schools of thought in strategic management strongly suggest that strategy should be comprehended as the creation of the organization’s goals, which is realized through joint effort, regarded as a constant process, and distinctive strategic vision and core values are terms that are often used in strategic management. Strategic vision refers to the executive views on the long-term direction. On the other hand, core values are the principles and norms that help in crafting a strategic vision.
Strategic leadership is about changing an organization through its vision and qualities, traditions and environment, and arrangement and frameworks and also through its system. In doing so, administrators and officials can build up transparency, make more grounded associations, and extend their managerial credentials. Also, they can add to their association’s prosperity. So how is strategic leadership different from other forms of leadership? Strategic leaders require diverse skills and viewpoints than other forms of leadership because of the following: first, they see the organization as interdependent and interlinked so that activities and operations of one department are seriously taken since it can affect other departments; second, they work with an expansive schedule, coordinating transient results and a long haul focus; lastly, they are usually the main initiators of organizational change. The impact of their work is felt through the organization.
For this reason, strategically leading entails finding the rare things an association needs to thrive and to expand. Just as essential is making the conditions expected to act all in all on the ramifications of that discovery. To do this, associations need to comprehend strategy as a process of learning. The motivation behind a key initiative is to drive associations to wind up persistent learning motors. Strategic leaders are the individuals who constantly create and find a strategy and hold it in a continuous condition of a plan, usage, reassessment, and update.
Strategic leadership encompasses strategic reasoning, acting, and influence. Strategic reasoning takes into account organizational vision and new ways of overcoming challenges and grasping opportunities. On the other hand, strategic acting involves the coordination of efforts needed for the implementation of visions derived from efficient strategic reasoning.
Last but not least, strategic influencing is all about developing conditions of lucidity, obligation, and concerted effort throughout the organization. While we recognize the three components of how to lead strategically, it is imperative to welcome the vibrant way that strategic reasoning, acting and influencing interface with one another. They are not distinct, particular, or direct procedures. For instance, strategic leaders every so often need to work together with other partners to address an intricate hierarchical test. That includes reasoning and acting together, not simply making all decisions alone. In other words, reasoning, acting, and influencing simultaneously.
Given that there is always limited time for profound or protracted strategic reasoning before an action can be taken, strategic reasoning and acting must be done together. In a nutshell, building the capability for strategic leadership starts with a shift in institutional and personal mentality. For this reason, strategic leadership is more of a procedure and not a status. It demands the corporation from all the stakeholders and commitment to learning. Making changes in an organization is neither simple nor swift. Still, when people and groups sanction strategic leadership, the result is a maintainable upper hand for the organization.
Role of Strategic Leaders in the Strategic Management Process
Organizations are working in progressively intricate situations, in which an adjustment to external changes is fundamental. Organizations’ attempts to adjust their main goal, objectives, and procedures with the outer environment are truly the quintessence of strategic management, which is the sphere of strategic leadership. Numerous researchers and specialists concur that organizations’ efficiency is affected by the level of fit between their interior qualities and external factors in the large scale environment. This procedure of adjustment is emphatically affected by the elucidations strategic leaders make of the surrounding. Interpretation of internal and external surroundings has an expansive impact on prospective actions that strategic leaders make to stay focused and to maintain a sustainable competitive advantage.
One region in which change is definite is the international competitive environment. Nearly every organization, vast or small, confronts rivalry for basic assets and business sector opportunities from rivals in the domestic front and from far off and regularly remote areas of the world. How fruitful an organization is at taking advantage of new prospects, and managing related dangers depends essentially on leadership capability to develop a worldwide mentality among executives and subordinates. It is about streamlining the association to perceive change not as a risk, but rather as an open door. Now and again, change is activated by an unanticipated occurrence with considerable negative impact.
Additionally, basic for strategists working in this period of high competition, globalization, and technical transformation is the need to take quick actions. Strategists must react faster to meet immediate and future demands. This is where strategic planning becomes possibly the most important factor. The pressure brought about by the hyper-competitive global environment has forced many organizations to ignore planning to act quicker.
Attaining success in the current business environment is neither an easy affair nor an accidental event. This is made possible by decisions made by strategic leaders. Executives must follow up on the organization’s interior and outside situations, build organization assets and abilities, monitor industry patterns, look for new opportunities, identify emerging threats, and develop vision and mission for the organization. All the above constitutes what is commonly referred to as strategic leadership. It is difficult to exaggerate the significance of strategic leadership in today’s vibrant and dubious business setting. It is one of the crucial elements considered basic to an organization’s capacity to adjust, develop, and succeed amid a turbulent environment.
Even though many writers have offered different versions of what a strategic leader is, they all appear to agree that a strategic leader must anticipate, envision, and work with other stakeholders to initiate changes in an organization that will ensure sustainable competitive advantage. Strategic leadership must be all-encompassing; that is, it should involve everybody in the organization from top to bottom. However, the executive must be held responsible for the company’s short-term performances and develop an environment that guarantees the organization’s survival.
Strategic leaders must be capable of the following: first, they should be able to anticipate and predict events in the exterior environment that have a considerable effect on the performance of the business; second, they should be able to find and sustain competitive advantage by developing core competencies and prospecting markets; third, they should be capable of assessing strategy execution and outcome analytically, and making necessary alterations; fourth, they should be able to build a highly efficient and inspired team; fifth, they should be able to decide on suitable objectives and priorities for realizing them; lastly, they should have excellent interpersonal and communication skills.
Nevertheless, a strategic leader may opt to focus on decision-making at the top and delegate other duties. This approach is favored by many organizations since it has a considerable impact on followers or followers in terms of their motivation and commitment. The delegation of responsibilities creates a sense of belonging and enhances strategic thinking from top to bottom. Also, it provides leaders with ample time to address key issues.
All the above operations and roles of strategic leaders fall under the domain of strategic management. The main question and focal issue in strategic management are why certain organizations are doing well while others are doing poorly. The answer to this question is pegged on the role of strategic leadership in the organization. One of the principal roles of a strategic leader is ensuring that the strategic management process is efficaciously accomplished to yield a positive outcome. A fundamental difference between strategic leadership and strategic management is that strategic leadership envisages where the organization ought to be in the future.
In contrast, strategic management concentrates on how to achieve long-term goals or objectives. Strategic leadership and strategic management are interdependent; that is, they strengthen and support each other. However, in most cases, this is not always true. There are numerous cases nowadays, where strategic leadership has completely failed.
Strategic Management Process
As mentioned above, organizational success depends on the decisions and actions of the executive all through the strategic management process. The strategic management process starts with the formulation of a strategic vision. Strategic vision refers to where the organization wishes and wants to be later on, given the environment in which it operates. The vision statement establishes a framework for the advancement of a statement of purpose (mission statement) that mirrors the organization’s core values, convictions, philosophy, and goals. The statement of purpose answers the question, “what is the organization’s drive?” It identifies the organization’s scope of activities and market conditions. The formulation of strategic vision is followed by the definition of long-term goals, which is essentially defining results that an organization is striving to accomplish to achieve its mission.
The last stage involves SWOT analysis or simply internal and external environmental audits. SWOT is an abbreviation for strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It is carried out before the formulation of strategy. The perpetually vibrant nature of the external environment calls for an occasional reassessment of an organization’s current strategies and vision, purpose, and long haul targets. Strategy formulation indicates the methodologies for accomplishing an organization’s targets. Strategies are the ways of achieving the objectives. Strategy execution happens through fundamental organizational design that ensures that the entire process is successful. Last but not least, the strategic management process also involves strategy evaluation when the actual results and compared to expected results after the execution of the strategy.
Change Management
Change management is the execution of a new strategy. Change is always part and parcel of leadership; that is why it is incorporated in the definition of leadership. Remember, we defined leadership as a process of putting up a practice for people to throw in their efforts to make something happen or bring change. Other authors have defined leadership as swaying leaders and supporters to accomplish certain targets through change.
The main emphasis of different leadership styles has always been on change and not the status quo. In the current stormy and competitive environment, where change is part and parcel of life, organizations must continually adapt to new events or circumstances to survive and remain focused. Companies and state establishments invest a huge amount of resources on change efforts. Example of change efforts includes process enhancement, streamlining operations, acquiring or merging companies or institutions, adoption of new technologies, embracing a new culture, change in leadership and many more.
Change can be transformational or progressive, and once in a while, a progressive change can develop into a much greater and drastic change than was expected. In a few cases, far-reaching change might require a redefinition of vision and statement of purpose, and subsequently change in plan and targets. Organizational change is any move that requires an adjustment in individual output. Change is about individuals doing things another way.
Why do we need to change? In the last 20 years, many authors have provided more information on processes that bring about institutional stability than those that explicate institutional change. However, speedy environmental changes are bringing on major changes that are dramatically affecting organizations and bringing in new threats and prospects for leaders. Therefore, writings on organizational change are progressively being seen as adjustment of structures, frameworks, and procedures, as well as the change in leadership style. Leaders must acknowledge the need to impart novel mission when conditions merit such initiatives.
The first step to change management involves identifying and analyzing the need for change before the execution plan. A thorough analysis that provides a lucid and meticulous evaluation of the existing conditions in the interior and exterior environment should be a precondition before initiating any change management process.
Pretty much every sort of organization is confronting an exterior environment typified by swift socio-economic and technological changes, as well as stiff local and global competition. These changes have opened new business prospects, such as fewer trade barriers and new markets in developing economies. On the other hand, it has created new threats in the form of local and global rivalry, technological obsolescence, rapid innovation, and short product life cycle.
Some scholars are of the view that threats are what bring about real change. They argue that real change cannot occur without any form of external threat that exposes the organization’s internal flaws emphasize the need to develop a sense of urgency, which they refer to as survival anxiety. Survival anxiety means having a feeling that unless changes are effected in an organization, there is a risk of running out of business. Survival anxiety is a necessary condition, but not sufficient condition for influencing change.
This is because there is always a possibility of change resistance as a result of learning anxiety. It is because of this reason that several scholars believe that real change cannot be effected until the followers are bought or convinced. Awareness of the need for change, a leader’s capability to persuade followers to rise above their interest for the sake of the institutional goal, underlines the significance of competent leadership in executing change.
Change Management Process
Numerous scholars and researchers suggest seeing change as a process, not an item. The change process is a way of transforming an organization and an approach to understanding the novel vision for the organization. It necessitates traveling through several phases and implementing distinctive assignments, including performing a hierarchical review, strategizing, planning the change methodology, corresponding, influencing others, and solidifying the change.
One of the initial and most broadly utilized change process models is the force-field theory. This model suggests that the change procedure is classified into three phases, that is, unfreezing phase, changing phase, and refreezing phase. A more current theoretical model is the eight-stage theory of arranged hierarchical change. The two theories are interdependent and support each other. They only differ in the execution phase. The eight-stage theory of arranged hierarchical change offers substantially additional information in the execution stage that is its counterpart. It proves eight sequential steps matched to one another. The model involves the following: establishing a sense of urgency, forming a support group, communicating the vision although the organization; training and empowering followers, permitting short-term achievements and rewarding good performance; and institutionalizing the change process.
Going back to the stages in force field theory, the unfreezing phase is normally initiated by charismatic and transformational leaders. Followers are often made aware of the need for change. The charismatic and transformational leaders usually motivate followers with a dream of a greater future that is adequately alluring to persuade them that the long-standing methods for working together are no more satisfactory. This acknowledgment might happen as a consequence of an instant crisis, or it might come about because of the endeavors of a transformational leader capable of describing dangers and prospects that are still unknown to many individuals in the organization.
The key is to distinguish the issues or dangers confronting the organization that calls for an immediate need for change. It is essential to spend more time at this stage to unearth looming danger and its origin(s) because whatever remains in the later stages will be the emphasis on a particular threat. Individuals must be persuaded of the need for change, and attention to the wrong danger and underlying drivers can convolute later phases of the change management process. When supporters are not persuaded of the need for change or do not comprehend it, there is a more prominent probability of resistance.
The changing phase is where the real change happens. It is the execution stage. At this stage, individuals search for a leader to help them find better approaches for doing things. The absence of a deliberately composed arrangement of activity at this stage will bring about an unsatisfying result. As specified over, the distinction between the power field model and the eight-stage model happens amid this stage.
Last but not least, the refreezing stage is where old approaches are completely abolished and replaced. Complete change can take place when requisite behavior turns into norms. Refreezing entails the institutionalization of new habits and culture. This phase is crucial since resistance that ought to have been ironed out may resurface, bringing about antagonism.
Role of a Strategic Leader in Executing Change
Despite the developing agreement that change is significant if an organization is to develop and flourish in the present and future environment, influencing change, particularly noteworthy change, is still not a simple undertaking. Numerous change endeavors do not meet the expectancy of the organization. The accompanying three measurements recount the story: around three-quarters of mergers and acquisitions among Western organizations fail to achieve their monetary targets or anticipated cooperative energies; less than half of organizations experiencing rebuilding, (for example, cutting back) attain the projected costs or revenue; and around a third of all mergers and acquisitions usually tumble completely.
A vital focal test for some leaders in overseeing individuals amid the change process and managing resistance. Imperviousness to change and the nonattendance of effectual leadership are key reasons why most change endeavors fail. While emphasizing on the role of effectual leadership, a research conducted in France uncovered that the probability of follower resistance mirrors the sort of influence a leader utilizes and the style of leadership.
There is a developing interest in comprehending how to enhance the degree of success of change efforts. Professionals emphasize on the significance of leadership inclusion all through the strategic management process.
There has been increased emphasis on procedures that leaders can utilize to oversee change instead of responding to it efficiently. These strategies entail clarifying motives behind change efforts; having unconfined and normal interchanges, a guide for execution, and preparing programs for requisite competencies/aptitudes; shaping an alliance of followers and specialists on the ground amid the early phases of the change process; finishing what has been started regardless of supposed challenges; perceiving and remunerating the commitments of others to the procedure; deliberately overseeing assets and needs; keeping the procedure straightforward; and to wrap things up, having an arrangement for managing resistance. Leadership should attempt to eradicate arrangements, systems, and practices that undermine the change efforts.
Followers who are responsible for actualizing change must make sure that the conduct of their leaders is fair in terms of partaking in the difficulties of the change. The leader should be willing to adjust his or her conduct if it helps to minimize resistance. A leader must encapsulate the change that he or she needs to find in devotees. This is in line with Mahatma Gandhi, who stated that every individual should embody the change he or she wants to see.
Finally, a genuine change representative must be an excellent listener. As a result, they help the leadership in comprehending the source of resistance. A greater comprehension of the motive behind change can help the leader develop a better solution. Eventually, the leader’s role is to actualize change that leads to enhanced performance; in any case, the question has consistently been how to carry it out efficiently and meritoriously, given the anxiety, distress, and separation connected with it. For instance, a change in leadership might influence individuals’ early trust in the new leader, correspondences with the new leader, encouragement to work, job fulfillment, and even turnover.
The change management process portrayed above enhances the odds of fruitful change execution and the probability that more individuals will back and focus on the change execution as opposed to it. It is an instrument or the way to get to the outcome.