The Critical Components of Strategic Leadership You Must Know
Strategic leaders have to be equipped with a range of skills that are required to handle organizational problems. Individuals in this position need the know-how, experience, and confidence to solve management problems. Strategic leaders seem to have some common personality traits - they can challenge existing norms without provoking cynicism. They can work on bigger and smaller pictures simultaneously, and change direction as and when they require. They make informed decisions and lead with engagement as well as with command.
Being a strategic leader is a mammoth task, and only a small percentage of senior management faculty turns out to be strategic leaders. Given the scarcity in leaders equipped with the skills to take up such a position, companies are frequently compelled to hire strategic leaders from outside. However, it is proven that significant changes are easier to bring forth if the initiative is taken from within.
Building The Capacity For Strategic Leadership
Companies can build the capacity for strategic leadership. It all starts with recognizing the emerging strategic leaders in your company. Your organization probably already has strategic leaders who are being stifled. In many organizations, the topmost positions in the hierarchy are often taken up by those who have consistently performed their duties well. While these are valuable traits, they do not necessarily fit the brief for being strategic leaders. A
strategic leadership course is designed to equip you with the essential principles and components of strategic leadership. These principles are a combination of organizational systems and individual capabilities. A course in
strategy management IIM Kozhikode can train you in the tenets of strategic leadership so that you can excel at the task.
The following are some indispensable components for the job:-
Systems and Structures
-
Distribute Responsibility
As a strategic leader, you must recognize the need to distribute work through all levels of the workforce. The workforce must be given a fair amount of autonomy, and employees across the organization need to be empowered to make decisions. Distribution of responsibilities allows leaders to observe what happens when they take risks. It also increases the collective skill, intelligence and resilience of the organization at large, by giving the workforce the opportunity to carry out their responsibilities effectively. The company begins to work like a well-oiled machine. Authority is known to increase confidence in individual workers at all levels.
-
Be Honest and Transparent
When people working in an organization lack information, it stifles their ability to propose changes to decision-makers higher up. Some competitive secrets may need to remain hidden, but employees need complete transparency from the management if they are to grow into strategic leaders. This method is known as “open-book management”. Transparency fosters conversation about the aspects of an organization that can be changed.
-
Create Multiple Paths For Testing Ideas
Developing ideas and presenting them is a necessary skill for strategic leaders. Also essential is their ability to turn those ideas into profitable plans for the organization. By setting up ways for people to bring their creative thinking to the surface, a leader can help employees make the most of their inner potential. A strategic leadership course can primarily train you in engaging with employees in a manner that allows you to see eye to eye on their ideas, or modify their ideas with ease.
People, Policies, and Procedures
You must make it safe to fail by creating an accepting atmosphere. If you’re too afraid to take a step back and admit that there’s a failure, you would be setting yourself up for a very difficult conversation in the long-run in which your embarrassment will know no bounds. You must be one to create an atmosphere that accepts failure as a stepping stone.
-
Provide Access To Other Strategists
Give fresher faces and other strategic leaders to work with their peers across the field. Cultivate the idea that many managers have it in them to become strategic leaders.
-
Develop Opportunities To Learn Through Experience
Strategists need to learn through experience. For experiential learning, you must take initiative and risks and find your strengths and weaknesses.
Know Yourself
-
Know The Difference Between Leadership and Management
Leadership and management are poles apart. Leaders lead with vision, while managerial professionals lead with objectives. For leadership, you need instinct and engagement. You need to know which direction to take instead of going where you are told to go.
Bring your whole self to work. As a strategic leader, you must understand that to accomplish holistic goals, you need to draw on everything you’ve learned in your life. You need to tap into your full capabilities, interests and experiences and present the sum of that in your work.
Reflection helps you learn from your mistakes. You have to question your previous decisions and learn to solve problems by delving into the core of a situation. Reflection allows you to raise the value of your aspirations. It allows you to identify great ideas. Reflection exercised the right way, can be productive as it helps you spot the prospect of achieving something from a mile away.
-
Recognize Leadership Development as an Ongoing Practice
Leaders have the humility to acknowledge that there is always more to learn. They do not shy away from their own vulnerability. Through this attitude, you have an opportunity to learn from others by allowing them to take charge every once in a while. By having an open mind, you not only become a strategic leader yourself but also create opportunities for others to become one.
The Bottom Line
A primary tenet of strategic leadership is giving autonomy to others. If employees feel too restricted by organizational practices, they are most likely to take their talents elsewhere, and this does not bode well for any company. The program on strategy management IIM Kozhikode teaches you that business challenges and disruptions contribute to a company’s success. By remembering the aforementioned components of strategic leadership and following their principles, you can truly recognize the mindset it takes to be a strategic leader. A strategic leadership course can ingrain these fundamental ideas in you. By getting mentored in the course on strategy management
IIM Kozhikode, you will get open-minded training that can allow you to extend the same autonomy to other potential leaders.
More Information:
10 Benefits of Leadership Courses
How Do You Become a Better Leader?
The Truth About Online Leadership Development Training
Top Leadership Skills You Need To Learn To Lead Your Team
✕
