Leading Strategically

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP

The task of exerting influence on other people’s pursuit of goals in an organizational context

Leadership: Managing an overall enterprise and influencing key organizational out-comes, such as company wide performance, competitive superiority, innovation, strategic change, and survival

Strategic leadership:

EXECUTIVE ROLES

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Formal authority and status

Interpersonal roles• Figure head• Leader• Liaison

Informational roles• Monitor• Disseminator• Spokesperson

Decision roles• Entrepreneur• Disturbance handler• Resource allocator• Negotiator

LEVEL 5 LEADERS

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Level 5leaders

Build greatness through combination of will and humanity

Level 4 leadersCan lead a group to superior levels of performance

Level 3 leadersOrganize people resources to accomplish predetermined objectives

Level 2 leadersWork effectively with others as a member of a team to achieve group objectives

Level 1 leadersMake individual contributions through talent and work ethic

Capabilities

TWO ATTRIBUTES OF LEVEL 5 LEADERS

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Professional modesty

Professional will

• The ability to translate strategic intent into the resolve needed to pursue a strategy

• and usually to make hard choices over a period of time

• The ability to translate strategic intent into the resolve needed to pursue a strategy

• and usually to make hard choices over a period of time

Being someone

• who prefers to share credit rather than hog it

• who tends to shun public attention,

• act with calm determination, and

• exercise ambitions on the company’s behalf rather than one’s own

Being someone

• who prefers to share credit rather than hog it

• who tends to shun public attention,

• act with calm determination, and

• exercise ambitions on the company’s behalf rather than one’s own

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE A CEO?

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Charisma?

There is little consensuson whether personality or background matters more

There is little consensuson whether personality or background matters more

An Ivy league MBA?

Integrity

International management experience?

LEADERSHIP CHARACTERISTICS

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Differences in competence and action

Companies are increasingly placing value on substantive work experience; looking beyond skin color, gender, and even the items on a resume.

Evidence of being a strategic leader–someone who works not only to develop a plan, but also empower the organization to realize the vision behind it, are important indicators of leadership potential

Personality differences

A large amount of research has been done on personality or the psychological determinants of strategic leadership focusing specifically on:• Locus of control• Need for achievement• Tolerance for risk or

ambiguity• Charisma and emotional

intelligencePersonality characteristics may be important; defining and isolating leadership abilities is difficult

Background and demographic differences

Background refers to factors such as:• Work experience• EducationDemographic refers to factors such as:• Gender• Nationality• Race• Religion• Network tiesThe profile of leaders is changing (e.g., more diversity among top management teams)

VISION – USES OF AMBITION AND AMBIGUITY

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Sony’s vision in early 1950’s:“becoming the company that most changes the worldwide image of Japanese products as being of poor quality.”

CitiBank’s vision in 1915:“the most powerful, the most serviceable, the most far reaching world financial institution the world has ever seen.”

Vision statements

•generally express long-term action horizons,

•are ambitious and force the firm to stretch.

•their ambiguity allows flexibility for changing strategy or implementation tactics

VISION ANCHORED IN GOALS

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Vision

Goalsand objectives

Examples

Wal-Mart Grow sales and profits by 70% per year

Ryanair Be Europe’s largest airline in 7 years

Matsushita To become a “super manufacturing company”