Strategic Management and Leadership Relationship

Relationship between Strategic Management and Leadership

Link between Strategic Management and Leadership

The correlation between strategic management and leadership cannot be underestimated, as they can define the company’s success in the market due to the ability to influence the development of the organizational strategy. Strategic management is used to assess the internal and external environment of the organization while defining its overall goals and objectives to enhance the performance of the company (Gold, Thorpe & Mumford 2010). In this instance, the strategic management implies in the analysis of the factors mentioned above while focusing on the spread of the corporate values across the company. It could be said that the management determines the overall organizational goals of the firm while defining the potential approaches for their achievement while evaluating the progress.

In turn, strategic leadership refers to the capabilities of the manager to distribute the core values across the company while using persuasive strategies to improve productivity and enhance overall organizational performance (Adair 2009a). It could be said that the principles of strategic leadership enable sufficient managerial performance in terms of the achievement of the strategy. In this instance, it could be mentioned that the strategic leadership is a core element of the strategic management, as it is highly related to the ability to respond to the fluctuations in the business environment (Gold, Thorpe & Mumford 2010).

Nonetheless, the leadership highlights the correlation of the managerial practices with the organizational behaviour and increases the delivery of the vision within the company (Mullins 2010). Based on the information provided above, the leadership practices can be regarded as a managerial instrument to determine the ability of the company to comply with core corporate principles in different segments.

In the end, effective leadership defines the capability to reach the company’s goals while utilizing a relevant approach for the distribution of the resources within the organization. In this case, the leader plays the role of the intermediate actor to create an understanding of the essentiality of the goals, objectives, and values. It could be said that efficient strategic leadership is a key strategic managerial instrument to advance productivity, but it is associated with an extended variety of challenges.

Impact of Management and Leadership Styles on Strategic Decisions

Strategic management and leadership have a vehement influence on the decision-making within the organization. The role of the managerial styles cannot be underestimated in the context of the presented topic, as they are substantial definers of the organizational values and may alter the existent objectives. In turn, it has to be mentioned that the selected managerial methods are dependent on various aspects including personal characteristics and nature of the corporate culture (Adair 2009b).

In this case, the diverse approaches determine the flow of events in the organization, as autocratic approach implies self-reliance when deciding while other tactics suggest the involvement of different levels of subordination in the process (Gold, Thorpe & Mumford 2010). This matter contributes to the understanding that some decisions can be single-angled meanwhile others cover the issue from dissimilar perspectives.

In turn, the leadership styles also tend to affect the flow of strategic thinking and definition of the relevant solutions to the current issues. Alternatively, they can have various levels of influence on the motivation of the workers due to a high correlation of the leadership with the organizational behaviour (Mullins 2010). It could be said that different leadership approaches tend to modify the focus of the actions, as some of them tend to concentrate on the innovation while other ones cherish the achievement of the organizational goals and improvement of the productivity (Gold, Thorpe & Mumford 2010). It could be said that the selected leadership style can alter the organizational goals and redesign a strategy by using different communication approaches.

In conclusion, it can be mentioned that both of this corporate phenomenon tends to have a vehement effect on the operations of the company while defining its success in future and possibility to reach company’s objectives in future. In turn, different leadership techniques influence decision-making by emphasizing different core business elements, which are vital for efficient performance. Nonetheless, the role of both matters cannot be underestimated, as these aspects can be discovered as the indispensable attributes of the company’s sustainability and economic growth. In the end, the leadership and managerial styles can be adjusted to assure the sufficient functioning of the constantly altering business environment since flexibility is the critical attribute for the firm’s survival and competitiveness.

Leadership Styles and Different Situations

Different leadership styles can be utilized to modify the organizational performance in a positive direction in unrelated circumstances. For instance, the leader with the innovative thinking and dissimilar viewpoints about the development might be considered of a high necessity when the company experiences a significant downturn in the creation and introduction of novel solutions (Gold, Thorpe & Mumford 2010). In this case, this leadership style is highly associated with the empowering managerial tactic, which actively implemented during the location of the business in the growing stage (Gold, Thorpe & Mumford 2010).

In turn, another leadership approach is needed to cultivate the development of the present products, as the core value is the cultivation of the principles of continuous learning for the solutions’ advancement (Mullins 2010). It remains apparent that these tactics are applicable in diverse situations, as they have dissimilar focuses and view the organizational values and abilities to reach success from different perspectives.

Additionally, some the leadership styles accentuate the maintenance of the relationships as vitality for the corporate growth while encouraging the employees to engage in the process with the assistance of transformational leadership (‘The secret of success’ 2015; Mullins 2010).

In this case, this tactic contributes to the enhancement of motivation and growth while facilitating the essentiality of the existent company’s corporate values. This approach has to be utilized during the layoffs since the employees require attention, support, and motivation to continue their productive actions. Alternatively, the internal performance and advancement of the productivity and efficiency can be viewed as a focus in some situations, and the positive attitude of a leader towards the enhancement of these matters will contribute to the advantageous modifications and improvement of the current condition (Mullins 2010).

Alternatively, the authoritarian approach can be emphasized as beneficial while facing the risky decision, as it is associated with the presence of the critical hierarchy in the organization (Gold, Thorpe & Mumford 2010). In this case

In the end, it could be said that leadership styles tend to have dissimilar emphases due to the differences in situations. In this case, the differentiation and constant assessment of the internal and external factors will have a positive effect on the determination of the required focus of actions. Furthermore, it remains apparent that the application of the wrong leadership approach can be discovered as a potential cause of failure due to the inability to consider the significance of critical matters of productivity while basing it on the sufficient analysis.

Application of the theories to organizational direction

Impact of the Theories on the Organizational Strategy

In general, the theoretical background has a substantial impact on the formation and redesign of the organizational strategy. In this instance, the theories define the general framework for the tactic generation, as they portray the core elements for the sufficient operations of the organization. Nonetheless, their impact has to be discussed in details to determine the capability of the theory to influence the formation and generation of the organizational strategy.

The strategic management with the selected managerial and leadership style forms the overall set of goals for the organization (Kouzes & Posner 2008). In this case, diverse managerial styles imply the usage of different strategies for the market growth and attraction of the consumers. Consequently, the managerial style with a high focus on innovation will contribute to the development continuously while attracting the attention of the customers with novel offerings.

In turn, the autocratic and democratic managerial styles define the corporate culture and determine the degree of participation of the different levels of subordination in the decision-making process (Gold, Thorpe & Mumford 2010). In turn, the bureaucratic approach clearly distinguishes between the goals and contributes to the sufficient flow of task completion (Gold, Thorpe & Mumford 2010).

Nonetheless, the condition and position of the organization in the market have to be determined based on the analysis. The leadership style will be generated based on the necessities of the organizations. Furthermore, the managerial principles have to comply with the overall organizational direction, mission, and values, as, otherwise, the misconceptions regarding the agreement with the overall corporate culture will be present (Mullins 2010). In turn, the clash of the interests might lead to the wrongful attitudes among employees and failure of the leaderships

In the end, it could be said that the firm’s strategy is highly dependent on the theoretical managerial approach and vice versa. This interdependence cannot be unnoticed since the absence of the common perception of the organizational strategy will create confusion and the inability of the company to enhance its corporate performance and productivity. In this case, the formation of the company’s strategy has to be viewed from theoretical and practical angles simultaneously to avoid misconceptions in the organizational direction.

Design of the Strategy

It remains apparent the strategy has to support the core direction of the organization, as, otherwise, the company will not be able to comply with the current goals and objectives due to the lack of the focus. In this case, the strategy has to conform to the mission statement and the corporate culture to assure efficient productivity. Nonetheless, the primary values of the organization have to be determined, and they include a high-level of the participation of the employees in the decision-making and focus on the constant innovation while cherishing the continuous learning to increase the efficiency of the company.

In this instance, a combination of the principles of different managerial styles will contribute to the establishment of the relevant strategy while balancing the innovation and the involvement of the employees with the leader’s autocratic nature. It could be said that the integration of bureaucracy and autocratic type will have a beneficial influence on the establishment of the order in the organization. This claim is relevant as the bureaucratic style sets different goals or objectives to the employees of diverse levels while autocracy assures monitoring and evaluation of the results (Gold, Thorpe & Mumford 2010). This aspect will support organizational growth and development towards innovation while reaching the selected objectives while highlighting learning as a priority.

In turn, the democratic style will contribute to the improvement of the novel ideas and perceptions of the existent issues. Furthermore, this method highly supports the critical values of the corporate culture, as the relationships with the employees are cherished in this approach substantially (Gold, Thorpe & Mumford 2010). In this instance, the presence of these methods will assist in the development of sufficient corporate culture while supporting and encouraging employees’ decision-making and participation in new idea creation.

In the end, this unique combination of the leadership and managerial styles contributes to the maintenance and development of the core organizational values. The organization will be able to monitor the alterations in the positive direction with the help of autocracy while the innovative focus will be supported by the active participation of the employees in the development of the ideas. Lastly, all of these styles will contribute to the generation of values to comply with the company’s vision and mission statements.

Leadership requirements

Review of the Current Leadership Requirements

Effective leadership is a complex discipline and implies a development of the particular characteristics to operate in precise situations. In this instance, the leadership’s requirements are the abilities of the individual to respond to the actual situations while portraying an attitude of the leader. It remains apparent that the being a leader is a challenging position, which involves a critical level of responsibility for the actions and the ability to deal with the complicated situation on the regular basis (Kouzes & Posner 2008). In this instance, the leader has to be aware of the extended range of controversial themes including discrimination, diversity, rapid adaptation to the technological changes, and alterations in the reporting standards.

Firstly, the leader of the organization has to value the employees and comply with their goals and direction of the company. For instance, the engaging leaders help build trusting relationships with the workforce while establishing the understanding of the firm’s strategy and achieving defining results for organizational success (Robinson & Tamkin 2013). Consequently, the leader has to avoid aggression while assigning tasks and assignments to the employees, as, otherwise, it will contribute to the development of the negative attitudes among managers and decrease in productivity (McLaughlin 2014).

This matter implies the development of a suitable opinion about ethics and tolerance, as flexibility is the critical instrument for building trusting relationships with the workers. Furthermore, it contributes to the building of the image as a successful leader, as the workers tend to believe that leader cares about the improvement of the organizational performance and employees’ career development.

In turn, the role of transparency cannot be underestimated, as it tends to eliminate the presence of the particular misconceptions between the leader and other members of the organization and encourage open communication (Robert-Edomi 2015). In this case, the organization will have an orientation towards future improvement while having a beneficial influence on the company’s productivity, organizational performance, and customer’s satisfaction (Robert-Edomi 2015). Establishing the reward system will have an advantageous impact on the working process since it plays the role of a stimulator for the achievement of better results. Consequently, Figure 1 depicts the fact that motivation is influenced by reward probability and its value (Berry 2014). It remains apparent that the leader has to consider these aspects to select the right reward system.

Plan for the Development of the Future Situations

The leadership is associated with the vast variety of challenges, and the planning for the introductions of future situations, which require leadership, is needed. One of the situations is the introduction of the new service or product in the selected field, as it might lead to the necessity to optimize the budgeting and planning procedures. In turn, all activities related to market growth such establishing new pricing strategy, evaluating new customer’s segment, and selecting a suitable advertising campaign can be viewed as the situations, which require the leader to portray his/her ability to make the right choices while considering the organizational direction. Simultaneously, this approach requires monitoring the employees’ activities to encourage participation in the innovative process and maximizing the efficiency of the operations.

It remains apparent that several situations related to staff management require sufficient managerial style. For instance, the recruiting process of the new employees has to correspond with the core principles of the organization such as transparency. Alternatively, it is a challenge to select suitable employees for the post while the continuous monitoring and learning environment has to be provided to a newcomer (Cattermole 2011).

In turn, outsourcing is another matter, which requires facing critical situation regarding ethics and layoffs, as critical decision-making is associated with this process. The leader has to be able to determine the future efficiency of the procedure while evaluating all the alternative providers of the service. Staff reduction has to be taken into account since it is a definer of the leader’s ability to deal with the critical circumstances, which tend to be present regularly due to the cyclical nature of the economy. This condition will define a leader’s ability to maintain the motivation at a sufficient level despite facing a necessity of the reduction in personnel. In the end, flexibility, transparency, and recognition are the core requirements of the leadership, which have to be respected while facing the situations mentioned above.

Ability to develop Leadership Skills

Development of the Leadership Skills for a Specific Requirement

An effective modern leader has to be able to respond to the different alterations, which take place in the business environment, as it highly affects organizational performance (Mullins 2010). In this instance, the transparency and openness in the communication with the employees can be viewed as a specific requirement, as it defines the overall atmosphere in the company and efficiency of the organization.

Consequently, particular attention has to be paid to this aspect, as it will have a positive impact on the organization’s profitability, efficiency, and employees’ commitment. Firstly, one of the approaches for the development of leadership skills is training, as it assists in understanding the critical principles of decision making while taking into consideration various case studies. For instance, BPS Ability and Personality training – Level A & B is an effective leadership training program, which aims at the understanding the usage of various psychological instruments to encourage commitment and motivation of the employees while complying with ethical principles (Pearson: BPS ability and personality training – level A & B 2016).

In this case, the learning sessions and training have to be organized twice a week, and cases have to be proposed, which will inspire finding the solutions to the situations, which intend transparency. The training sessions will cover the theoretical concepts associated with training, HRM, leadership, transparency, and corporate culture, which can be practised with the assistance of the discussions, workshops, scenarios (both fictive and from the real companies).

For instance, the program will encourage playing the set role models associated with having open discussions with the rest of the employees, as this aspect complies with the corporate culture. Consequently, the suggested roles will be distributed among the participants, and each of them has to be able to be a manager or subordinate in the selected context, as this approach will contribute to seeing the nature of conflict and transparency while being able to understand the employee’s side in the discussion.

Additionally, leadership games and simulators of the critical situations can be viewed as a suitable method for the enhancement of the understanding of the leadership role. These aspects have a similar nature as training, but their initial goal is to contribute to effective decision-making while facing controversial situations. For instance, various conflicting situations such as the layoff, discrimination, and unreasonable negative feedback on employees work could be viewed as examples while participating in these events will change the attitudes towards management and leadership in the workplace. As it was mentioned earlier, the nature of the activities will be the same as playing the role models, but the information will be delivered with the assistance of the specialized software and simulators to ensure the ability of the leaders to adapt to the unpredictable changes and continuously changing working environment.

Lastly, the leader has to understand the core principles of the leadership culture. In the context of this case, the information can be acquired with the assistance of the literature review, as this method provides a theoretical basis for the assessment of real-life situations. The future leader can utilize various databases and portals such as the official website of Strategic Management society, as the portal offers an extended variety of the resources aimed at the improvement of the managerial skills while providing the information about the conferences to improve the knowledge in the selected field (Strategic Management Society: SMS home 2016).

The leader has to read the associated magazines such as Training Journal to enhance the understanding of HRM functioning and cultivate openness in the organization. Nonetheless, all of the methods mentioned above have to be utilized simultaneously to assure the sufficient development of the leadership skills in the desired field.

Report on the Usefulness of Methods

The applied and utilized methods have to be assessed and evaluated in terms of efficiency considering the influence on the advancement of the leadership skills and understanding of the necessity of the development of transparency and openness in the organization. It has to be mentioned that the introduced approaches and tactics are applicable in different situations due to the various natures. Nevertheless, these concepts aim at the enhancement of the leadership skills and positively determine the development, as they tend to provide background information about HRM, governance, and management while introducing the particular situations, which will contribute to the understanding of the application of these concepts in practice.

A literature review has to be discovered as a basis for the formation of the knowledge related to this field. The primary benefit of this method is the ability to portray situations from different angles while using various case studies and theoretical dogmas. Nonetheless, it can be viewed as a part of the complex education only, as it is limited to the hypothetical perception. Meanwhile, Training Journal as a recommended literature for the expansion of the knowledge will have a beneficial impact on the ability of the managers to determine the appropriate situations to apply concepts into practice, as this approach addresses the critical issues positively.

Training can be regarded as an effective method, as it requires the presence of the different levels of activities, which present the critical situation in the organization from dissimilar angles. In this case, the proposed training methods, which are presented in the form of discussions and portrayal as various conflicting situations at the workplace. This concept has an advantageous influence on the understanding of the issues from dissimilar angles and perspectives since different role models are considered in the presented context.

Simulators and games also have a similar nature, as both training and games tend to combine practice and theory in their activities. Meanwhile, the primary benefit of the utilization of computer technology is the ability to teach the user to adapt to the fluctuations of the modern business environment and depict the presence of the problems related to the openness and transparency. Furthermore, the usage of these instruments determine the existence of various situations, which can occur in the workplace, and these elements of the training program help build and establish particular behavioural patterns corresponding with the corporate culture of the organization. Consequently, it could be said that the methods mentioned above construct a connection between the theoretical knowledge acquired from the literature review and the real business practice.

Despite the positive influence of the methods on the understanding of the leadership requirements, all of the approaches mentioned above are rather limited to the information acquired from the cases while having a strong basis on theory rather than on practical knowledge. In this case, the theoretical concepts serve as a foundation for the decision-making, as the simulators, games, and discussion are highly scientific and lack the presence of the real responses to the potential conflict situations at the workplace. Everyday experience can be viewed as the only method for the development of the leadership skills to the specific requirement. Nonetheless, training, simulators, and literature review are essential elements for building the theoretical basis for the managerial positions and have to be applied simultaneously for the achievement of the desired results.

Reference List

Adair, J 2009a, Effective leadership: how to be a successful leader, Pan MacMillan, London. Web.

Adair, J 2009b, How to grow leaders: the seven key principles of effective leadership development, Kogan Page, London. Web.

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Cattermole, G 2011, ‘Engagement lifecycle’. Training Journal. Web.

Gold, J, Thorpe, R & Mumford, A 2010, Leadership and management development, Gower Publishing Limited, Burlington. Web.

Kouzes, J, & Posner, B 2008, The leadership challenge: how to make extraordinary happen in organizations, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken. Web.

McLaughlin, J 2014, ‘Four types of dysfunctional manager’. Training Journal. Web.

Mullins, L 2010, Management and organizational behaviour, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River. Web.

Pearson: BPS ability and personality training – level A & B. 2016. Web.

Robert-Edomi, S 2015, ‘Getting your organization ‘fit for the future’ should be every leader’s top resolution’ says OD firm’, Training Journal. Web.

Robinson, D, & Tamkin, P 2013, ‘Engaging with teams’. Training Journal. Web.

Strategic Management Society: SMS home. 2016. Web.

‘The secret of success in managed learning is a good relationship with the right partner’ 2015, Training Journal. Web.