Week 6 Flashcards
What happens during Step 3 – Plan and Prepare?
Shows how the change will be achieved
Balances push vs pull strategies
Blueprint planning (low uncertainty) vs open-ended planning (high uncertainty)
Considers ethical and legal factors
Leadership focuses on people, communication, and internal politics
What happens during Step 4 – Implement and Review?
Implementation starts, but monitoring is key
Expect backtracking to fix issues
Risks: lack of training, commitment, inflexible systems
Needs: systematic feedback, communication, training, and tools
What happens during Step 5 – Sustain the Change?
Make the success long-term and consistent
Focus on sustainability: economic, environmental, and social balance
Pull strategies lead to more lasting change than push
Emphasizes continuous improvement and learning from experience
What does PDCA stand for?
Plan – Identify goals and how to achieve them
Do – Implement the change on a small scale
Check – Monitor and evaluate results
Act – Make necessary adjustments and standardize improvements
What is the PDCA cycle used for?
It’s a continuous improvement tool used to test and refine changes in a structured way — part of sustaining long-term, high-quality outcomes.
What is the etymology of the word ‘strategy’?
From Greek ‘strategos’, meaning army leader or military general.
What is Johnson, Scholes, and Whittington’s (2008) definition of strategy?
Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term to achieve advantage in a changing environment through resource and competence configuration to meet stakeholder expectations.
What is Michael Porter’s view on strategy?
Strategy involves performing different activities or performing similar activities in different ways to deliver unique value. It goes beyond operational effectiveness.
What are Richard Rumelt’s elements of good strategy?
Consistency, consonance (fit with environment), advantage (competitive edge), and feasibility. Strategy should include diagnosis, guiding policy, and coherent actions
What are signs of bad strategy according to Rumelt?
Fluff, failure to face the challenge, mistaking goals for strategy, and setting bad objectives.
How does Mintzberg differentiate strategic planning from strategic thinking?
Planning: structured, data-based, focused on goals/tasks
Thinking: creative, future-oriented, adaptive, insight-driven
What are the five key differences between strategic planning and strategic thinking (Liedtka, 1998)?
Nature (mindset vs. structure)
Focus (ideas vs. tasks)
Flexibility (adaptive vs. fixed)
Time horizon (long-term vs. short-term)
Outcomes (insight vs. action)
What is strategic leadership (Yukl, 2002)?
Often synonymous with executive leadership; involves leading entire organisations toward strategic goals.
According to Achua & Lussier (2010), what is strategic leadership?
The ability to anticipate, envision, maintain flexibility, and inspire others to create and implement a firm’s vision, mission, and strategy.
What is absorptive capacity?
The ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply valuable external information (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990).
Give an example of failed strategic leadership
Sony’s Betamax – high quality but failed due to poor marketing, high cost, and low adaptability vs. VHS.
Give an example of successful strategic leadership.
Netflix – recognized digital disruption, adapted from DVD rental to streaming, emphasized learning and innovation.
Organisational outcomes reflect the values, experiences, and cognitive biases of top management teams (TMTs).
What are the five psychological phases of a CEO’s tenure (Hambrick & Fukutomi)?
esponse to mandate
Experimentation
Selection of enduring theme
Convergence
Dysfunction
What is visionary leadership (Rowe, 2001)?
Combines dreaming and doing – visionary leaders innovate, inspire, and align people toward long-term goals.
What are some styles of visionary leadership (Westley & Mintzberg)?
Proselytizer (e.g., Musk), Bricoleur (e.g., Lee Iacocca), Diviner, Creator, etc.
What are Yukl’s critiques of strategic leadership?
Leaders are constrained by external forces, limited discretion, organisational structure/culture, and bias in attributing leadership success.
What are common types of business strategy?
Differentiation (e.g., Apple)
Cost Leadership (e.g., Aldi)
Focus/Niche (e.g., Amazon early)
High Quality (e.g., Apple)
Imitation (e.g., Xiaomi)
Alliances (e.g., BMW & Daimler)
Acquisitions (e.g., Twitter)
Global Diversification (e.g., Coca-Cola)
Brand Leadership (e.g., Google)
Reinvention (e.g., IBM)
What are the key types of uncertainty-related risks (from Lecture 4)?
Lack of information
Unpredictability
Randomness
Black swan events
Instability in decision-making
Unreliability and trust issues
What is strategic risk leadership?
Using strategy to create value while identifying, assessing, and controlling risks to safeguard that value.
What are traits of risk leaders?
Visionary
Strategic
Decisive
Resilient/flexible
Collaborative
What are the five elements of strategic risk leadership?
Anticipation
Adaptation
Alignment
Assessment
Action
What are extreme context traits for risk leadership?
Agile decision-making
Self-regulation
Moral courage
Trust and shared purpose
What is leadership-as-practice (LAP)?
Leadership emerges from everyday interactions and social practices, not just individual traits. It’s collective, distributed, and based in practice theory.
What is strategy-as-practice (SAP)?
Focuses on what strategists actually do — analysing tools, activities, and interactions to understand how strategy is constructed and enacted.
