In order to be able to retain their best talent and organization must ensure that its employees feel that they have the ability to play a vital role in the organization future. This can be done by stimulating employees to always outperform their expectations by providing them with a platform to prove their worth to the organization. It is at this point that one feels the need of an effective leader who can provide the needed motivation and direction to the organizations employees so that they while fulfilling their own potential at a micro level also help the organizations realise their goals at a macro level.
To be a successful leader, one must be a strategic leader and should chart the course that the organization should follow to be successful. He should take into consideration all aspects of the business that form the external and internal environments of the business. It is only through being strategic, that a leader can analyse the short fallings of the business and plot a strategy to revive it.
This assignment shall see us focussing on the evolution of leadership over a period of time from a historical perspective to a more modern approach. Particular emphasis shall be laid on strategic leadership and the importance it ha attained in the modern organizations of today especially with regards to employee motivation.
Scholars tend to hold two mutually exclusive views about leadership: one school of thought holds that leaders are born (Grint, 2000, Nietzsche, 1969) and that the qualities they embody are subconscious (Lowen, 1975), while the other posits that humans need to work hard to develop these qualities before they can emerge as leaders (Henrikson, 2006; Kakabadse and Kakabadse, 1999; Kakabadse and Myers, 1996).
Leadership is often defined as the method of social sway in which one individual can procure the assistance and support of others in the execution of a common task. Generally speaking, it is the art of getting people to work together as a team where each one plays a part towards achieving a bigger common goal.
Leadership remains one of the most relevant aspects of the organizational context. However, defining leadership has been difficult and definitions can vary depending on the circumstances. Leadership is often described as a capacity: the capacity to listen and observe, to use expertise as a starting point to encourage dialogue between all levels of decision-making, to establish processes and transparency in decision-making, to articulate value and visions clearly but not impose them. It is about setting and not just reacting to agendas, spotting shortcomings, and initiating transformation that makes for significant perfection rather than overseeing change.
Innate to theories of transformational and appealing leadership is a perception that leadership is a specialized and detached action done by heroic, inaccessible figures. This division of leadership is characteristic of traditional management opinion which separates issues of managerial work tending to view these as identifiable and different (Watson, 2002). As Schruijer and Vansina (2002) argue such splitting obscures the intricacy of life. Further, there is a inclination not only to see leadership as disconnect from management but also greater. In Bass's theory for example, management is connected with transactional leadership which is seen to be a helpful but lesser leadership approach, which is comparatively straightforward and basic to achieve. Bass (1985) argues that "to be transactional is the easy way out; to be transformational is the more tricky path to follow".
Such a separation is upheld by several scholars such as Zaleznik (1992) who suggests that managers are concerned with dull activities and maintaining order while leaders are concerned with novel and exhilarating activities and arouse change. Mangham and Pye (1991) have criticized this severance arguing that It results in nothing more than a hazy feeling that managing is something rather ordinary and leading is impressive and precious undertaken by the really significant people in the organization. They dispute that leading is not a specialized and detached activity, but simply a facet although a highly prominent characteristic, of managing. Others have likewise recommended that leadership and management may be more conveniently seen as correlated roles rather than as split activities undertaken by separate people (Nadler and Tushman, 1990; Yukl,1999).
Even though management and leadership is not the same thing, they do overlap. Management is more regarding putting in place prescribed processes to make sure things happen, and to engage people in, it's regarding more operationally working with people. There is a fair bit of overlap. Trying to manage, without being a leader, and being a leader, without doing some management, is impossible. Leadership is a great deal more about setting visions, persuading an individual that that is the correct vision, encouraging people to follow you by painting the larger picture and encouraging people to contribute towards attainment of the larger picture (strategic planning manager).
This would as a result suggest that even as leadership may be somewhat dissimilar from managing there is a little extent of overlap and the two are correlated activities. There would appear to be a sense that leadership may be a characteristic of managing which is overly concerned with thinking about the long term outlook of the organization and nurturing support for particular ideas.
Strategic leadership theory has developed from the original upper echelons theory developed by Hambrick and Mason (1984) to a study of not only the influential ways in which the leading alliance impacts company results but also the symbolism and social structure of top executives (Hambrick & Pettigrew, 2001). Hambrick and Pettigrew (2001) note two differences between the expressions leadership and strategic leadership. First, leadership theory refers to leaders at any rank in the business, while strategic leadership theory refers to the study of persons at the top echelon of the organization. Secondly, leadership research focuses predominantly on the association between leaders and followers. Contrary to this micro focus, strategic leadership research focuses on executive work, not only as a relational activity but also as a strategic activity and a symbolic activity (Hambrick & Pettigrew, 2001).
The need to design strategic planning systems to fit particular organisations and their unique contexts has been addressed by numerous management writers. For instance, Morrisey (1996), a strategic planning consultant and author, repeatedly stresses the need to customise the strategic thinking, long- range planning and tactical planning processes to best fit the needs of an organisation.
Preceding study has recommended organizational learning as an imperative conscientiousness of strategic leadership. Bennis and Nanus (1985) locate organizational learning directly in the camp of leadership, and they argue that, in order to be able to retort to tomorrow's challenges and opportunities, strategic leaders must instigate a process that enhances step by step education.
At the individual level, strategic leaders generate learning opportunities by promoting such mechanisms as constant development, competence attainment, testing, and periphery spanning. In addition, in order to make available lush ground for new ideas, CEOs and top managers create a basis for "intellectual failure" in their organizations. Strategic leaders' control direction also affects personal learning by potentially preventing employees' autonomy to considerably alter the nature of their occupation activities. At the group level, top managers may plan structures and communication infrastructures that provide incentives to individuals to share their information, practices, and experiences. Strategic leaders influence group education by encouraging solidarity, trust, cross-training, heterogeneity, and connectivity, as well as industrious meetings, argument when viewpoints differ, and disagreement as a chance for learning.
Strategic renewal has also been allied with the "natural progression" of organizations. We dispute that a firm's leadership and learning requirements differ according to the different challenges posed by each phase of organizational life. Lacking system and policies, the beginning juncture is frequently disordered and hazy, and leadership is usually a "one man show." The strategic leader exercises great authority, working to heighten spirits, support broad employee participation, and make possible both untried and feed-forward learning.
Firms pursue a renewal strategy essentially because they need to meet the requirements of a changing environment. We expect that highly turbulent and uncertain environments will favour the emergence of transformational leadership. Leaders quell chaos and ambiguity by formalizing and standardizing current ways of doing things through feed-forward learning.
The main purpose of strategic leadership can be put down to efficiency. However, it is not only about increasing the quantity of work completed, but its emphasis lies more on working harder in order to meet the corporation goals. Strategic type of leadership always keeps the needs and welfare of employee's in mind and always appreciates the myriads of talent an employee possesses despite the fact that's its ultimate motive is the welfare of the company in general.
A strategic leader will rethink an entire situation if he feels it doesn't make sense to initiate other changes. He will critically analyse all aspects of a decision before deciding to make any change in the organizational functioning. This is a vital facet of managing strategically and keeps to underlying principal of using strategy in every aspect of decision making. It is only through critical analysis that there can be a greater accomplishment in the place of work when all factors are well thought out before any thing is implemented.
In order to be able to lead strategically, a leader must have the uncanny knack of being able to be balance in both the internal and external focus. It is only through managing this efficiently that an organization can be flexible and be able to respond the ever changing market scenarios. It is only through being flexible that an organization can be able to respond to volatilities in the market while at the same time meeting stringent quality specifications thus being able to proudly fall into the category of efficient and successful organizations.
It is therefore right to say that in order for an organization to be successful in the market, it is essential that they have a well drawn out plan to follow. The plan will help the organization know if they have fallen a little wayward and help them steady their direction towards meeting desired goals and objectives. It is only through sticking to a well thought out strategic plan that an organization can hope to be successful.
One of the key factors that strategic leadership looks to address is to improve the productivity of its employees who it deems very critical to the company's long term objectives. It is therefore imperative that a strategic leader ensures that his employees are well looked after. He should be their motivation and inspiration and encourage them to take an active part in the decision making. He must motivate them to set self targets that are in line with overall company targets and thus help employees realise their potential. He should go out of his way as much as possible to ensure that required resources are made available to employees so that their productivity is not hampered. While being a guiding force to employees, he must also ensure that he gives employees sufficient freedom to take their own decisions and to self learn. In a nutshell, he must understand that employees are a vital resource for the organization and must do his best to make sure that they are well taken care off. It is only when this is done that it is possible for the organization as a whole to meet its own targets.
In conclusion, it would be safe to say a proper strategic plan which is largely concentrated on employee wellbeing and welfare and has the ability to balance both the internal and external factors that an organization can be able to meet the challenges of an ever competitive world. The failure to plan strategically would ultimately mean doom for an organization planning to move forward.
