Strategic Leadership

Pertains the executives' use of power and influence to direct the activities of others when pursuing an organisation's goals.

The stretegic leader's ability to influence the behaviour of other organisational members to do things, including things they would not do otherwise. Stretegic leaders can draw on position power as vested in their authority as well as informal power such as persuasio to influence others when implementing strategy

Study of 350 CEOs - 2/3 of time in meeting, 13% working alone, 7% on email, 6% on phone calls, 5% on business meals, 2% on public events. Managers prefer oral conversation with a wide array of parties inside and outside the organiation. Despite technology advancements, CEOs spend modt of their time in face-to-face meetings

Most effective for getting messages across and obtaining information. Meetings present data through presentations and verbal communications. CEOs can pick up on rich non-verbal cues

Organisational outcomes including strategic choices and performance levels reflect the values of the top management team which are the individuals at the upper levels of an organisation

Collins found consistent patterns of leadership among the top companies. His pyramid is a conceptual framework that shows leadersahip progression through five distinct, sequential levels. Collins found that all the companies he identified as great were led by Level-5 executives. Effective strategic leaders go through a natural prgression of five levels

Highly capable individual who makes productive contributions through her motivation, talent , knowledge and skills. These traits are a neccessary but not sufficient condition

The individual attains the next level of strategic leadership by becoming an effective team player. As a contributing team member, she works effectively with others to achieve common objectives

The team player with a high individaul skill set turns into an effective manager who is able to organisethe resources neccessary to accomplish the organisation's goals

The effective professional has learned to do the right things meaning she does not only command a high individual skill set an dis an effective team player and manger, but she also knows what actions are the right ones in any given situation to pursue an organisation's strategy

Combining all four prior levels, the strategic leader builds enduring greatness by combining willpower and humility. This implies that a Level-5 executive works to help the organisation succeed and others to reach their full potential

Concerns the choice of strategy in terms of where and how to compete.

Concerns the organisation, coordination and integration of how work gets done

Concerns questions relating to where to compete as to industry, markets and geography

What do we want to accomplish ultimately? First principle that needs to be defined because it succinctly identifies the primary long-term objective of the organisation. A vision capture an organisation's aspiration. An effective vision pervades the organisation with a sense of winning and motivates employees at all levels to aim for the same target whiule leaving roo for individual and team contributions. Employees is visonary comopanies tend to feel prt of something bigger than themsewlves. An inspiring visions helps employees find meaning in their work and value beyond monetary rewards

How do we accomplish our goals. Describes what an organisation actually does in terms of the product and service it plans to provide, and the markets in which it will compete

What commitments do we make and what safeguards do we put in place to act both legally and ethically as we pursue out vision and mission. A core values statement matters because it provides touchstones for employees to understand the company culture. It offers bedrock principles that employees at all levels can use to manage complexity and to resolve conflict. Such statements can help provide to organisation's employees with a moral compass

Tesla's vision is to accelrate the world's transition to sustainable transport. The goal is to provide affordable zer-emmision mass-market cars that are the best in class. SpaceX is a spacecraft manufacturer and space transport services company, also founded by Elon Musk, whose inspitational visoon is to make human life multi planetary. To achiev this goal, Space X aims to make human travel to Mars not only possible but affordable. Role in establishing self-sustainable human colony on Mars

Defines a business in temrs of a good or service provided. Product-orientated visions tend to force managers to take a more myopic view of the competitive landscape

Defines a business in terms of providing solutions to customer needs. Companies with customer-orientated visions can more easily adapt to changing environments. Companies that define themselves based on product-orientated statements tend to be less flexible and thus more likely to fail

Lays the foundation for sustainable competive advantage. Strategic leaders design a process to formulate and implement strategy

Strategic planning, scenario planning, strategy as planned emergence. First two are relatively formal, top-down planning approaches. The third begins with a strategic plan but offers a less formal and less stylized approach

Derived from military strategy, is a rational process through which executives attempt to program future success. All strategic intelligence and decision-making responsibilites are concentrated in the office of the CEO. The CEO, much like a military general, leads the company strategically through competitive battles

Asking what-if questions. Top management envisions different scenarios to anticipate plausable futures in order to derive strategic responses. Takes place at both the corporate and business levels of strategy

The high impact of a highly improbable event. In the past, most people assumed that all swans are white, so when they first encountered swans that were black, they were surprised. Strategic leacdrs need also consider how black swan events might affect their strategic planning

The outcome of a rational and structured, top-down strategic plan

Generally formulated through a combination of its top-down strategic and bottom-up emergent strategy\

Any unplannned strategic initiative bubbling up from deep within the organisation. If successful, emergent strategies have the potential to influence and shape a firm's overall strategy

Any activity a firm pursues to explore and develop new products and processes, new markets, or new ventures

Strategic initiative undertaken by lower-level employees on their own volition and often in response to unexpected situations

Describes random events, pleasant surprises and accidental happenstances that can have a profound impact on a firm's profound impact on a firm's strategic initiatives

The core tenet of which posits that rather than to optimise when faced with decisions, we tend to "satisfice" - a portmanteau of the two words satisfy and suffice

Tend to lead us to achieve the "good enough option" that satisfies our immediate needs, rather than search for an optimal solution. One argumant that supports this tendancy suggests that we do not have all the information we need to arrive at an optimal decision. Cognitive limitations are what prevent us from appropriately processing and evaluating each piece of information that we encounter (a concept known as information overload) when faced with constrainsts such as time

The brain's default mode and gut reactions. We use system 1 most of the time as it is efficient, automatic and requires little, if any, attentional energy

Logical, analytical and delibrate which consumes more of our brain's energy. This system tends to be slower . The brain comprises 2% of body weight but consumers over 20% energy

Lead to systematics errors in our decision making and interfere with our rational thinking

The tendancy to overestimate out ability to control events. The belief that you control things you do not

Occurs when decison makers continue to support and invest in a project despite having recieved feedback that it is not likely to succeed. A significant amount amount a tiem and financial resources have typically already been commited

The tendency to use simple analogies to make sense out a complex problems. Analogies allow us to examine and compare a complex problem to something familiar. What may be similar on the surface may be very different on a deeper level

One team generates a detailed course of action. A second team plays devil's advocate and challenges the proposal generated by Team 1. Team 2 questions the underlying assumptions made in the proposal and highlights anything that might go wrong in the proposed cause of action, thus illuminating potential downsides. Team 1 revises its inital proposal based on the input and suggestions. This process is then repeated one more time