What successful activities or
behaviors do strategic leaders engage in? To facilitate this discussion some
key factors associated with strategic leadership are shared below. These are,
first, those abilities to undertake organizational activity and, second,
individual abilities:
Organizational ability to:
1. be strategically orientated;
2. translate strategy into action;
3. align people and organizations;
4. determine effective strategic
intervention points;
5. develop strategic competencies
Personal characteristics of:
6. a dissatisfaction or restlessness
with the present;
7. absorptive capacity;
8. adoptive capacity
9. Leadership wisdom
Organizational abilities
1. Strategic leaders have the
ability to be strategically oriented. This quality involves
the
ability to consider both the long-term future seeing
the bigger picture, as well understanding the current contextual setting of the
organization.
2. Strategic leaders have the
ability to translate strategy into action. In addition to
strategic leaders leading the creation of an appropriate strategy for the
organization is the need to translate strategy into action by converting it
into operational terms.
3. Strategic leaders have the ability to
align people and organizations. This ability involves
aligning individuals, or the school as a whole, to a
future organizational state or position.
4. Strategic leaders have the
ability to determine effective intervention points. Strategic leaders are able to
define the key moment for strategic change in organizations. Strategic
leadership does indeed matter … it seems the real question is not whether it
matters but rather under what conditions, when, how and on what criteria.
5. Strategic leaders have the
ability to develop strategic capabilities. Leadership thinkers Prahalad and Hamel use the term
‘core competencies’ while researcher Stalk use the term ‘strategic
capabilities’. Either way, the key message is to ability of leaders to develop
core capabilities that differentiates them.
Personal characteristics
6. Strategic leaders have a
dissatisfaction or restlessness with the present. This restlessness involves what
researcher Senge describes as ‘creative tension’ which emerges from seeing
clearly where one wishes to be, one’s vision, and facing the truth about one’s
current reality.
7. Strategic leaders have
absorptive capacity. They have the ability
to absorb new information and assimilate it and learn from it and importantly
to apply it to new ends.
8. Strategic leaders have adaptive
capacity. They have the ability
to change which is termed as ‘adaptive capacity'.
9. Strategic leaders have
leadership wisdom. Wisdom may simply be
defined as the capacity to take the right action at the right time.
Finally, if moral leadership is to be exercised and
pedagogy re-engineered with any degree of success, then future strategic
leaders will need a firm set of personal values. No doubt many will have their
own lists, but integrity, social justice, humanity, respect, loyalty and a
sharp distinction between right and wrong, will all need to be included.
Strategic relationships will soon flounder unless such a value system is held
with conviction and exercised on a regular consistent basis.
I wish you good luck and see you next week!
Regards,
Saju Skaria
SajuSkaria@gmail.com
www.SajuSkaria.com
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