Chapter 12: Strategic Leadership

Question 1

What are the 7 key responsibilities of strategic leaders?

Answer 1

• Understand the organisation
• Lead effectively & ethically
• Develop & communicate compelling vision
• Create integrated organisational system to implement strategy
• Build & use distinctive capabilities aligned to the strategy
• Ensure ethical practice & good governance
• Initiate & manage strategic change

Question 2

How can leaders understand the organisation as a whole?

Answer 2

By looking at all interelated functions of the corporation and engaging in the Strategic thinking process.
* Strategic thinking: Identify Problems
* Diagnose problems to understand their nature (Can sometime be extremely complex, ambiguous and interrelated)
* Conceive solutions (Use mental models/like roadmaps & think laterally)
* Realise solutions through implementation (Define clear business models of the organisation to aid solution development & implementation)

Question 3

How can leaders lead ethically and effectively?

Answer 3

• Consider King IV guidelines
• Leaders must have emotional intelligence (Self-awareness, self-control, motivation/discipline, empathy, social skills)
• Must balance transactional with transformational leadership styles depending on the situation
• Also balance visionary and managerial leadership approaches depending on circumstances
• Leader must match corporate cultural values with external cultural values of employees for effective leadership. (Ubuntu, Collectivistic/Individualistic)

Question 4

How can leaders develop a vision to lead change?

Answer 4

Vision includes 2 components:
* Core ideology (Core values & Core Purpose)
* Envisioned future
VIsion includes 4 criteria:
* Possibility: innovative & vibrant image of the future
* Desirability: Vision aligns with company values and culture
* Actionability: Employees have clear ideas of how they can help realise the vision
* Articulation: Vision is clearly articulated to everyone

Question 5

How to create integrated organisational system to enable strategy implementation?

Answer 5

• Design & implement appropriate organisational subsystems- structurally determine who will do what, and which functional departments are responsible for which individual activities (Ensure integration and synergy between departments)
• Staff the organisation ensuring social capital- hire and retain the right people to fulfil strategy (Includes skills development)
• Ensure appropriate leadership in the organisation- influence people, communicate direction, balanced scorecard turning strategy into key performance indicators (Install appropriate functional and business managers)
• Create appropriate organisational culture- leaders have massive influence on organisational climate and culture
• Develop distinctive capabilities to help implement strategy

Question 6

How to ensure ethical practice & good governance?

Answer 6

• Put processes and systems in place to make sure company complies with ethical and environmental standards and creates value for all stakeholders across all 6 capitals.

Question 7

What types of change are there and how can leaders initiate and manage change?

Answer 7

• Transactional change= change in management/products/processes
• Transformational change= change in culture
• urgency of required change must be established and communicated
• future envisioned state must be well understood
• necessary timeline and resources must be known