Developing Strategic Leadership

• learn how to lead in a way that position an organisation, family, church or society for the future while meeting current demands
• improve your leadership techniques that yield undeniable results and endless opportunities
• learn strategy in management of organisation or institution
• develop your influence in all direction
• develop strategic leadership, personality traits and performance competencies and skills

The Most important question for Strategic leadership is: How do we lead in ways that position an organisation or family for the future while meeting current demands?

Let's begin by defining some terms. The Greek word for strategy means: "art of troop leader; office of general, command, and general-ship". It is a high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty. Max McKeown (2011) explains that "strategy is about shaping the future" and is the human attempt to get "desirable ends with available means". In short, strategy is a term that refers to a complex Web of thoughts, ideas, insights, experiences, goals, expertise, memories, perceptions, and expectations that provides general guidance for specific actions in pursuit of particular ends. Strategy is at once the course we chart, the journey we imagine and at the same time, it is the course we steer, the trip we actually make.

It should be noted that strategy has no existence apart from the ends sought. It is a general framework that provides guidance for actions to be taken and, at the same time, is shaped by the actions taken. This means that the necessary prerequisite for formulating strategy is a clear and widespread understanding of the ends to be obtained. Without these ends in view, action is purely pre-emptive and can quickly degenerate into nothing more than a flapping about like a hen trying to fly. As leaders, we all want to soar like eagles. 

Key features of strategic leadership 

What then is strategic leadership? Does it require a different set of skills from other forms of leadership? Strategic leadership requires us to think, ack and influence others in a way that promote the continuing success of organisation. Strategic leaders use leadership techniques that empower and motivate rather than bully employees. Strategic leadership realizes that employees have a potential that should be encouraged in a respectful, yet motivating way. Employees are encouraged to follow their own initiative. Coaching style of leading others is used. Leaders look to retain good employees while also forecasting how the company can run even more efficiently in the future. Leaders reward quality workers by promoting them and offering incentives to do well for the company. Strategy, or careful planning, before making any change in the company, is absolutely crucial to the strategic leader. 

Productivity is a major goal of strategic leadership. It is not about merely increasing the amount of work done. Rather it shows impressive results for work hours. We have said that strategy is a matter of achieving stated goals. Productivity of the company improves when all the workers team up to achieve known goals. Although the strategic style of leadership always keeps the best interests of the business in mind, it's also appreciative of employees' unique talents and efforts. Strategic leadership basically means using strategy in the management of workers. The main strategy usually employed is to motivate workers to take the initiative to improve their productive input into the company. Strategy involves thinking and planning, while leadership inspires others to take the appropriate action. This management model trains and encourages employees to best prepare the company for the future. 

Ways of developing strategic leadership

 

Development is a process. It does not happen in a twinkling of an eye. It must therefore be identified, anticipated and planned. It is known that the most effective organisations are planing now for tomorrow's leaders. It is a challenge for us to prepare new generation of leaders who will continue and extend the strategic reach of the organisations. 

Leaders who are strategic are always looking ahead and analysing the present in terms of preparation for the future of the business. Awareness is a big part of leadership style, but it must be followed up with well thought out action. Strategic leaders are adaptable and growth-oriented. They take responsibility for getting things done by training employees to think and act more effectively to achieve the best result possible for the company. 

Ultimately, strategic leadership is both an organisational and a personal process, and it is one that today's businesses cannot afford to ignore. The job of strategy is not limited to a few top executives. Strategic leaders are needed throughout our organisations if they are to adapt, innovate and succeed well into the future. Effective leadership is required more today than ever before. The rapid rate of change and the speed of communication requires leaders at senior and middle management level to excel at strategic leadership. 

Leadership and learning play a critical role in enabling organizational growth and transformation and ultimately strategic success. Good strategy identifies an organisation's current reality as well as it's desired destination - what it needs to develop and how it needs to change in order to successfully compete and achieve it's business goals. The gap between current reality and desired destination can be filled by increasing individual competency as well as building organizational capability. A complete and well developed strategy will include direction on the steps to be taken to develop leaders need in order to fill the gap and propel the organisation to its desired future target. 

Developing personality traits of wokers

Recent research from MIT and Carnegie Mellon found that today's employees are motivated beyond money by:

• Autonomy - not being micromanage
• Mastery - being developed and coached and a sense of purpose. 

For more information read the book "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us" by Daniel Pink. Please note that external factors are not lasting motivators. The more lasting motivators are the ones that come from inside the person. The moulding of the person to do the job is important.

There cannot be a better way to prepare the strategic leader than asking the one that makes what He created to be new again (2 Corinthians 5:17). If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. It is this new nature that some contemporary social scientists are researching into. For example: Jim Collins in his "Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap....And Others Don't," used extensive research to identify leaders that had an aggressive resolve coupled with humilty. He called the concept "level 5" leadership. Merwyn Hayes and Micheal Comer took the concept one step further by identifying specific behaviours that leaders can implement in their book "Start with Humility: Lessons from America's Quiet CEOs on how to Build Trust and Inspire People". Recognise here that humilty has been identified, scientifically, as a major personality trait that will promote the success of an organisation. Genuine humilty comes when one hands over one's life to the Lord Jesus Christ. It cannot be isolated and taught in the classroom. Rather, it comes in the context of accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. It is an outgrowth of this relationship with the Lord. 

Developing performance competencies and skills 

In a research at the Wharton School involving more than 20,000 executives, it was identified that there are six skills that, when mastered and used in concert, allow leaders to think strategically and navigate the unknown effectively. These are the abilities to anticipate, challenge, interpret, decide, align, and learn. The organisation should develop in the workers, the ability to understand the context and to recognize and seize the opportunity. This includes behaviours such as: Ability to offer solutions - quickly and thoughtfully. Ability to transcend any particular personal or professional limits (Perseverance). Ability to explore issues below the surface. The ability of workers to be fiercely ambitious and driven by the desire to achieve stated goals.

The workers should develop the ability to think beyond the present, understand a broader business context and create a future compelling vision while also being able to execute plans and implement ideas. We should be able to develop in the workers, intuition and innovative thinking. They should be able to understand current market trends and use their knowledge to move the organisation forward. 

We have seen that strategic leadership refers to a manager's potential to expression a strategic vision for the organisation and to motivate and persuade others to acquire that vision. The main objective of strategic leadership is strategic productivity. Another aim of strategic leadership is to develop an environment in which employees forecast the organisation's needs in context of their own job. Strategic leaders encourage the employees in an organisation to follow their own ideas. Strategic leaders can generate vision, share vision, zealously own vision and determinedly drive it to accomplishment.