Strategic Management : Strategic Leadership

The London Academy for Higher Education: Extended Diploma in Strategic Management and Leadership Course Manual 2011 / 2012

Strategic management is the process where leaders establish an organization’s long-term direction, set the specific performance objectives, develop strategies to achieve these objectives in the light of all external and internal changes, and undertake effective strategies to manage these changes and execute action plans.

449). Secondly, the Chief Executive Officer is an organizational leader following standards of conducts that refer “the officer reasonably believes to be in the corporation’s best interest” (Thompson, 2008, p. 17). A strong leader can only lead when that leader knows what direction they are going. For example, one activity for distributing from centralized leadership is “a structural layer that forms the overall frame and direction for knowledge creation in the organization”; therefore, knowledge of proper management skills is important (Jain & Jeppesen, 2013, p. 349). To overcome a leaderless organization an employee or manager can take initiative by setting department goals that include a mission and a vision. Then, strategically formulate organizational goals that support the corporation’s best interests. All in all, an organizations department management team can create a strategic management process per department that supports the organizations best interest.

Often times, leadership and management can easily be confused although they are very different on a fundamental level. More so, leadership is a process focused on making organizational changes. Leadership directs its focus towards, “tomorrow”. Additionally, leadership is transformational, consultative, and participative. It is geared toward leading people, having followers, and is often times regarded as people-oriented. Management on the other hand is about controls and results, it focuses towards, “today”. Management is authoritative, autocratic, consultative, and democratic. Management focuses on administering work that is to be completed. Also, managers have subordinates and is task-oriented. In relation to strategic planning both leadership and management have very different jobs. Effectiveness in an organization is directly dependent on the leaders. Strategic planning is crucial when clarifying where your organization is going and what measures you may be taking to reach your goal. Leaders are the ones who assemble the strategic plans to reach the goal. Through implementing the strategic plan, leaders influence people so that they are able to do their job willingly and enthusiastically. The leaders central focus is on the principles and guidelines. They work to ensure the strategic plan encourages any change that is needed. On the other hand, management organizes and coordinates the necessary steps of the strategic plan. They bring stability to plan and help regulate any policies and procedures that may be necessary in the strategic plan process. Managements attempts to have a firm basis on the control of what might be essential for the strategic plan. A few questions I might have for the management team at Oakwood Health Services are: “What criteria will we use to

Execution of a strategy allows an organization to identify a strategic manager or management team who will be responsible for five key components: people, resources, structure, systems and culture. The role of the strategic manager or management team is to implement and monitor performance and report to company stakeholders on the status. Because strategy drives an organization’s success, the team should select managers who can aggressively drive the objectives to achieve desired results through three actions:

Dr. Copeland says, I do not know exact wording for strategic leadership, but according to my opinion the strategic leader is who, works as separate individual along with group of people and create the road map, alliance, and assurance needed to accomplish the standards along with the goals for the organization.

The leadership approach employed in an organization affects the vision, growth, and possible success of an organization (Malewska & Sajdak, 2014; Yukl, 2013). When organizational leaders employ strategic leadership, they consider various elements including internal and external factors that can affect performance, the influence leaders have on people and processes, situations that may alter a leader’s ability to affect performance, cultures within the organization, disaster planning, succession planning, and the role of role of executive teams (Malewska & Sajdak, 2014; Yukl, 2013). Two organizations that provide insight into strategic leadership are Costco and Nissan.

The ability to influence others to commit to accomplishing organizational goals and objectives is the fundamental basis of strategic leadership. The objective of strategic leadership is to develop long-term success for a going concern. This cannot be accomplished without developing a financially stable organization. Executives are required to formulate, implement and evaluate strategic initiatives in order to build sustainability into the fiber of the organization. Strategic leadership requires the leader to think in the abstract and make unprogrammed decisions in planning the future of the organization.

A leader must be decisive and smart in order to make the decision of when to take an action and when to stay still. A leader should know the internal strengths and weakness of his own organization and the environment surrounding him/her. The importance of vision comes up in the book where Sun Tzu highlights that the army should have the same animated spirit regardless of which rank you hold. This applies to strategic planning in such that an organization without a vision and mission is basically like a stray dog looking for a home. If you do not know what you stand for then your customers will be confused as

To successfully steer a corporation across the span of years by integrating its strengths toward the goal of creating wealth, requires from the CEO exceptional thought and judgment. Excellent CEOs are as rare as MLB-caliber pitchers or NFL-caliber quarterbacks. And in the business world, every day is the Super Bowl. There is no off-season or respite from the need to perform at one's peak.

Closing. In closing, a CEO with a flawed character or wrong motives for being a CEO will destroy a company or restrict its growth. A CEO must not allow ego boosting people to cloud his judgment as a leader. Neither should the CEO allow stress of the business to cause him to lose focus on his main purpose being a CEO. Regardless of how he/she became CEO, either through promotion or mere focus and drive, keeping the main thing should be the main thing.

The strategic management process helps institutions identify what they intend to achieve and how they will accomplish outcomes. The term strategic management is used to refer to the entire decision-making process. Strategic management must evolve by predicting the future (more effective planning), thinking strategically (increased responses, evaluation of strategic alternatives and dynamic allocation of resources) and creating the future (strategic planning through orchestration of all resources to create advantage) (Gluck, Kaufman & Wallach, 1980). Therefore the orchestration of all resources within an institution, strategically driven by a flexible planning process

CEO is the single person most closely associated with the firm’s performance in the minds of company shareholders. This can work in the CEO’s favour, as when they garner all the praise when performance climbs. It can also work against them, when they receive all the blame for performance declines. Shareholders, employees, and customers tend to lose confidence in a firm’s leadership when performance is poor, even when environmental factors are largely to blame.

Strategic planning and leadership are interlinked with each other although they are completely two terms. Strategic management is practiced by the leader of the organisation and is totally effected by the leadership style and his/her performance.

Professional Diploma in Management Studies Assignment Brief UNIT TITLE: Developing Strategic Management and Leadership skills Assignment: Tutor: Date Set: Date of Submission: Instructions: Mr Tayo Tewogbade March 2011 17th April, 2011 Answer all questions