A Beginner’s Guide on Strategic Leadership 2023
It is true that, more or less, all of us have encountered several types of leaders in our lives. And each of the leaders had a uniquely different approach to doing their individual tasks. While business leaders have a unique approach to working and solving everyday business issues, strategic leaders provide completely new insight.
Strategic Leadership is all about the leaders of an organisation encouraging their potential workers to aim toward a better future. So whenever the workers make any significant decision, they must first consider the future of the company they’re working for.
Nonetheless, strategy deals with more than simple ideas. Besides, it demands a complete understanding of the organisation’s mission and a careful thought process. So, for a strategic leader, both strategy and leadership go hand-in-hand. In a nutshell, strategic leaders are capable of witnessing the bigger picture, thus, focusing more on the results than the methods.
Today, this article will give you valuable insights into strategic leadership and its other associated aspects. Also, while you delve deeper, you will get to explore the various types and examples of strategic leadership. Let’s get started.
Strategic Leadership – What is it?
Strategic leadership can be defined as the ability of leaders to visualise, lead, plan, and make the best out of resources. In a nutshell, leaders influence others to make voluntary decisions on a regular basis. It basically provides aid in enhancing the long-term viability of the organisation while maintaining short-term financial stability.
Strategic leaders are capable of streamlining processes, thereby increasing their work productivity. Also, they can foster innovation and formulate a creative environment only with healthy initiative amongst employees. And while the current work environment is quite disruptive, strategic leaders ensure that their organisations maintain a competitive edge.
On the other hand, strategic leaders deliberately conjugate their strategic plan with their strategic management. In fact, their organisation is highly respectful towards their overall vision and leadership role. This is primarily because strategic leaders bring their leadership vision and strategies to life.
Strategic Leadership – What are the Types? 
You should remember that there are three distinctive types of strategic leadership. Here, in this section, we’ve broadly defined each type of strategic leadership. They include:
Transformational Leadership
Transformational leaders typically combine leadership and strategy, thereby using their vision to guide their employees’ behaviours and actions. They also bring forth significant changes within both the individuals and the organisation. So, the strategy of transformational leadership deliberately influences others to transform themselves.
This strategic leadership variant efficiently focuses on any particular organisation’s benefits. Further, transformational leaders guide their teams to recognise all the goals and responsibilities of the organisation. They also provide aid in enhancing the confidence of their team members.
Transactional Leadership
Transactional leaders ensure that all the team members have clearly understood their work processes and their expectations regarding the outcomes. They typically balance both leadership and strategic management by measuring the performance of every individual. And if at all required, they motivate their employees so that they can improve their performance.
In transactional leadership, the leaders might sometimes punish their employees for bad performance. But those who are performing well are provided with enhanced pay, bonus, etc., as a performance incentive. This leadership strategy is very likely to yield results but doesn’t offer the optimum ones.
Charismatic Leadership
Charismatic leaders are those who work their charm only to persuade others. However, they also have the drive and passion for completing their tasks on time. There are quite a few similarities between charismatic leaders and transformational leaders. So, their work focus is probably to bring an alteration in the status quo rather than necessarily within the organisation.
Commendable Examples of Strategic Leadership
There are a plethora of prominent leaders who have actually shown us what success looks like for real. They have further proceeded to execute how vision can actually transform into reality. Here, we’ve enlisted a few remarkable examples of strategic leadership. They include:
Steve Jobs
The co-founder of Apple Inc. Steve Jobs was a charismatic leader who belonged to the personal computer era. He efficiently led the company of Apple Inc. And in order to embrace his vision completely, he brought forth several differentiating strategies. Some of them include simplicity, customer service, and priority toward innovation.
Elon Musk
The founder of SpaceX and the co-founder of Apple Inc. Elon Musk is regarded as the early investor of Tesla. In fact, he is also the CEO of this electric car. Above all, he is best defined as a transformational leader who can combine strategy and leadership. This strategic leader also believes that there’s always a better technique to do something or the other.
Amazon
During the initial stages of the last decade, the stocks of Amazon went up by 225%. But ever since then, it has reached a significant height of 650%. This phenomenal upliftment of Amazon’s stocks can be deliberately attributed to the strategic leadership and management of Jeff Bezos. His strategy was to focus on things that certainly don’t change and remain the same forever.
So, Bezos efficiently focused on long-term growth rather than brooding on short-term gains. Thus, he emphasises the importance of research, intuition, and profound knowledge regarding the market. Nevertheless, he remains highly focused on those trends that seamlessly drive in.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What are the characteristics of strategic leaders?
The main characteristics of strategic leaders are active listeners, strong communicators, collaborative, positive, empathetic, diplomatic, etc.
How is strategic leadership important?
Strategic leadership efficiently helps streamline processes, promotes innovation, and boosts strategic productivity.
What is regarded as the core of strategic leadership?
Strategic leadership typically refers to a manager’s potential to express an organisation’s strategic vision. Further, the leaders motivate and persuade others to acquire the core vision.
How is strategic leadership beneficial?
Strategic leadership facilitates unity and prompts all employees to purchase into the vision. This actually reduces the chances of any significant conflict and brings unity to teamwork.
What are the elements of strategic leadership?
The two distinctive elements of strategic leadership are strategic processes and strategic approaches.
