Strategic Leadership: Ensuring Your Organization Success

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Table of Contents

Introduction
A Concept Analysis for Strategic Leadership by Eija Kjelin
Conclusion
Reference

Introduction

Success in leadership is an attribute admired by many people who are aspiring to be outstanding leaders. The business world today is very demanding and challenging at the same time. Leadership that is dynamic, procedural, and long-sighted into the future is needed for vibrant business growth. Leaders who thrive on hope for a better tomorrow without clear strategies are bound to fail in their planning. Equally important is the strong link between the executive and support staff. The two levels are vital as far as the growth and success of an organization are concerned with strategic leadership in this case aimed at maximizing returns for an organization at the same time reducing risk factors to business development. This paper summarizes, compares, and contrasts two peer-review journal articles namely:- Strategic Aims: Making the Right Moves in Leadership by Beatty K.C. and Hughes R.L, and A Concept Analysis for Strategic Leadership by Kjelin E.

Is it possible to ensure that your organization succeeds by making it flexible to the dynamic environment which is full of risks and uncertainty? Is it even possible to harness a vibrant leadership structure in your organization that will lead to high performance? This can be achieved with strategic leadership which enhances vision, values, culture, climate, leadership structure, and systems.

Strategic leadership is different from operational leadership in the sense that operational leaders are result-oriented. They also marshal the resources well. Senior executives fall into this category. However, effective strategic skills require systematic skills. In this case, decisions made should be of help to all departments in an organization.

Focusing on the future is another quality of strategic leadership with both short and long-term targets put into mind. Poor strategic leadership will not provide for good tactics in an organization. People need to understand what strategies will be useful for their organization.

Limited perspective is a big limitation to the growth of a business unit. Long-term goals need to be incorporated into the business plan as well. Strategic leaders think of themselves as continually developing and always in the process of discovery. In addition, a strategic leader should be able to assess the present state of the organization on business matters such as competition and its internal environment. It is also imperative for strategic leaders to understand where the organization is and the way forward. The vision, mission, and values of an organization are considered here. At times, some leadership structures do not strive to move higher in operation. A strategic leader has the responsibility of hitting higher targets irrespective of the current state of the organization.

Some leaders fail to take any action towards achieving higher goals in an organization. As a result, their strategies without action lead to business failure. They need to adopt strategic thinking which involves having a vision of what an organization can and should become. New ways of understanding an organization are devised through strategic thinking. The influence should equally be strategic to ensure clarity, commitment, and synergy.

A Concept Analysis for Strategic Leadership by Eija Kjelin

The aim of the article is to identify attributes of strategic leadership.

Attributes in Leadership

Leadership aims to contribute to the development and achievement of organizational purpose leading to influence. In other words, leadership is all about the positive influence on an organization. Other key attributes in leadership are the nature of the process, the presence of influence, the group context, and achieving goals. Leadership is embedded in a specific context and time and it should continually be reinvented and updated. So leadership is about people, interaction, and change.

Transformational leadership includes idealized influence or charisma, behavioral idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration

Attributes in Strategy

The strategy helps to narrow down the concept of leadership. The various ways of using the concept of the strategy include the descriptive approach, the prescriptive approach, the configurative approach, and the practice approach.

Attributes in Strategic Leadership

Is it possible to capture strategic leadership by drawing connecting lines between leadership attributes and strategic attributes? The attributes used in leadership lack the power to differentiate strategic leadership. The various ways of using the concept of strategic leadership include the process and not position in leadership, patterns, and not tasks. The difference between general and strategic leadership seems to be unclear, the context being the main distinguishing attribute. Strategic leadership is expansive compared to general leadership. The third difference relates to the possible consequences of strategic leadership that have a large-scale impact not just on the organization but also on its stakeholders.

Similarities and Differences

According to Beatty and Hughes (2005), strategic leadership is important in a dynamic business environment compared to operational leadership which only ensures that tasks are done and resources well used. This is a similar thought shared by Kjelin when he asserts that “the attributes used in leadership lack the power to differentiate SL” (2009). Strategic leadership is quite narrow compared to general leadership in relation to vision, values, culture, climate, leadership structure, and systems (Beatty & Hughes 2005). On the other hand, Kjelin views strategic leadership separately in terms of leadership and strategy. According to Kjelin, leadership is about people, influence, interaction, change, time, context, and moral activity while strategy deals with the entire organization in terms of decision making and competition (2005). Both Beatty &Hughes and Kjelin agree that strategic leadership is about patterns not executive positions in an organization. While Beatty and Hughes (2005), focus much on the qualities of a strategic leader, Kjelin “adopts a concept analysis of SL to determine the various ways it is used and to clarify the concept of SL itself” (2009). Competition is necessary in an organization. Beatty and Hughes argue that a strategic leader will take control of healthy competition to improve performance. Similarly, the prescriptive approach as explained by Kjelin says that “strategy is unnecessary in the absence of competition” (2009). Organizations are independent yet interconnected. Hence, decisions made in one part of an organization may as well affect the other and should be taken care of (Beatty & Hughes 2005). This is referred to as systemic view. Kjelin seems to agree with this notion when he observes that systemic view is a paradox within an organization and that “it focuses on relationships and momentary actions…” (2009).

Conclusion

Effective leadership in an organization definitely requires effective leaders. In view of this, leaders in an organization should think and act strategically with the aim of boosting performance. They should be part of the transformation and potential change. Their influence to the lower ranks within the organization should be equally positive. Strategic management will make an organization endure the tough times and achieve the desired success.

Reference

Beatty K.C.and Hughes R.L. (2005). Strategic Aims: Making the Right Moves in Leadership.Leadership in Action 25(4)3-6

Kjelin E. (2009). A Concept Analysis for Strategic Leadership. EBS Review. No.26.37-57

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