BY MARSHAD BARRY
Today many aspects of leadership is discussed in the business forums but it is important to realize that one of the fundamental aspects of leadership is influencing people to take the desired actions and lead the given team towards the right direction in order to achieve the organization’s goals. “Strategic Leadership” refers to a manager’s potential to express a strategic vision for the organization, or a part of the organization, and to motivate and persuade others to acquire that vision which can further be explained as utilizing strategy in the management of employees. Strategic leadership is defined as the ability to influence others to voluntarily make day-to-day decisions that enhance the long-term viability of the organization while maintaining its short-term financial stability. (W. Glann Rowe, 2001)
Different leaders have their own unique approaches on how they implement their vision and plan for their organization, solving the problems and challenges that their business is prone to face. Jeff Bezos; Founder, Executive Chairman and former President and CEO of “Amazon”, once mentioned “We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details.” This gives an idea and impression on the mind of a strategic business leader.
The role of a strategic leader is to perfectly generate the structure of an organization, administer its resources and indicate a strategic vision. As a strategic leader, working in uncertain environments and handling difficult tasks that exert an influence on different occasions and outer organizations is part and parcel of the role. Furthermore, a strategic leader possesses the ability to streamline processes, increase productivity, foster innovation and create an environment of creativity and initiative among employees. Most importantly strategic leaders always need to add value to the organization and they must understand the core mission and vision of the company. Thus they must persevere towards aligning the company’s activities with its mission and vision whilst understanding who their customers are and how to add value to their lives.
As per Ireland and Hitt (1999), there are six components of strategic leadership enhancing organizational performance:
- Determining the firm’s purpose or vision
- Developing human capital
- Exploiting and maintaining main strengths
- Emphasizing ethical practices
- Establishing balanced organizational controls
- Sustaining an effective organizational culture
There are three well-defined types of leadership that is identified under strategic leadership.
01. Transactional Leadership: This type of leadership ensures that everyone has clearly understood the expectations regarding the processes and outcomes while balancing strategic management and leadership by measuring individual performances and motivating employees to improve performance.
02. Transformational leadership: This type of leadership combines strategy and leadership and utilizes “vision” to guide the actions and behaviors of the employees. They mostly bring about a change in individuals as well as the organization. This leading strategy involves influencing others to transform themselves
03. Charismatic leadership: These leaders work their charm to persuade others and possess the drive and passion to get their work done.
There are many noteworthy examples for the success of strategic leadership in business organizations.
Due to the strategic management and leadership of Jeff Bezos , Amazon’s stock went up by 225% in the initial half of the last decade and since then, it has risen by 650%. He focused on long term growth instead of short term gains and his strategy focused on things that don’t change.
The epitome of “Transformational Leadership” is Elon Musk, the Co-Founder of PayPal, Founder of SpaceX and early investor and CEO of the electric car Tesla. He is best described as a transformational leader who combines strategy and leadership subsequently believing that there is always a better way to do something.
The most notable example of “Charismatic Leadership” is Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Inc. and a charismatic leader of the personal computer era. He led Apple Inc. to fully embrace his vision with the key differentiating strategies; customer service, simplicity, ease of use and priority towards innovation.
“Strategic Leaders” consistently have a vision to foresee many steps ahead causing their focus to always be future-oriented. They foster a culture of problem-solving, belief in delegating and have genuine empathy for one another.
