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TABLE OF CONTENTS

WEEK 7-9: Strategy Implementation

Unit Learning Outcome (ULO A) 60

Metalanguage 60
Essential Knowledge 60
Strategy Implementation 60
Process organization 62
Cross Functional Structure 62
Downsizing 63
System and Systems Thinking 64
McKinsey’s 7S Framework 64
Soft Strategy 65
Strategic Planning-Revisited 65
Strategic Control 66
The Review Wheel 66
Strategic Performance Management 67
Focus 68
Alignment 69
Integration 70
Review 70
Levers of Strategic Control 70
Strategic Leadership 72
Four Competencies of Leadership 73
Leadership Styles 74
Leadership and Management 75
Strategic Change 76

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Module 2: Strategy Implementation (7-9 weeks)

Unit Learning Outcomes: At the end of the unit, they are expected to:

1. Assess the factors that may influence a company's decision to adopt a type of
organizational structure.

2. Track and evaluate the strategic management of intent, objectives, and strategy of an
organization; this includes the organization and management of adjustments and
improvements during the ongoing implementation of the strategy.

Metalanguage:

To implement the organization's strategies successfully. Its structures must

support its unique system while the company's entire machinery must be aligned with
the direction it wants to go. The company's functional strategies should be
complementary to the much-desired goals; hence, fitting between and among
organizational elements, including departments and small business units, is essential.

Essential Knowledge:

Strategy implementation

Strategy implementation is the creation of the appropriate organizational structure

and processes to execute the strategic plan.
Organizing is central: the last twenty years have seen a move away from traditional
hierarchical frameworks to favor ideas on organizing to develop and design research
that encourages collaboration and process management.

The organizational structure includes four basic types – functional, product, matrix,
and regional structure.

A process is a sequence of related tasks to deliver an objective.

Cross-functional working involves teams with individuals who come from different
functional areas of an organization working together to meet an objective.

McKinsey’s 7S framework is a conceptual framework of seven interrelated variables

for organizing change management, which emphasizes organizational values in addition
to strategy, structure, and systems.

Strategy implementation defines and organizes processes and procedures for

the strategic management of an enterprise. The most critical aspect is the creation of a
suitable organizational framework (Daft, 2012). The structure is organizing action into a
cohesive and functional body. A characteristic of almost all companies is the hierarchical
hierarchy of responsibilities. This allows for unified decision-making, and controls the
number of organizational levels and reporting direction. There are four structural forms

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groupings broadly: functional, product, area, and matrix. The lines between the boxes
indicate the principal reporting paths between the different pieces.

Functional structure is the division of labor into specialized operations, such as

divisions specializing in buying, manufacturing, marketing, finance, etc. This training is
required to develop skills for teams and individuals to be able to do work effectively.
The different sections must be efficiently managed by a center to act as an integrated
system; the structure is hierarchical as the center at the top of the organization
administers the overall design of the transition process.
As companies increase in size, they usually become multi-product and multi-
market businesses and organize their operations into product and regional region-
based divisions. These are grouped into practical activities with their organizing center
and often managed by a general manager whose staff reports to its headquarters. This
kind of multi-divisional structure is called the M-form organization.

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The M-form allows each division to be focused either on unique products (or brands)
or on a distinct regional market. The divisions allow companies to stay close to clients so they
can easily recognize and respond to evolving business needs. Executives at headquarters are
responsible for the overall management of the divisions. One drawback is that divisions can
find it hard to coordinate when inter-divisional and inter-departmental projects are required.
Where inter-divisional projects are essential to an organization's core business,
organizations that employ a matrix structure, project teams, and divisions are structured to
report to the public and product management collectively. Organizing matrixes is often
challenging to handle due to an inherent conflict between the various product preferences and
regional management. A project manager grapples with the complexities of shared
responsibility and authority, which are frequently vague in the matrix organization.
Differences in organizational hierarchy differ in the complexity of approaches to
thinking about effective strategies. Alfred Chandler (1962), an economic theorist and one of
the first to write about organization and strategy, thought policy should be made at the center
of an organization, while divisions should include only operations. For classical strategic
management, the idea that planning is distinct from operations is a key one. It is the belief that
strategic planning is mainly a central and long-term task, while its execution is achieved by
short-term management control and middle management operations.
The opposite has occurred over the last twenty years when many multinational
companies have flattered their organizations to the number of middle managers and the scale
and number of centralized roles at a corporate headquarters. It represents, in part, a move
towards a more customer-focused organization based on business processes like lean working.
From a strategic management viewpoint, functional-based research has many drawbacks.
Strategic goals are likely to be disrupted as vital business processes are split into disjointed sections
and distributed through several departments. This can result in hand-offs between operations,
lengthening completion time, increasing delays, and communication and overhead costs. There is a
risk that the essentials related to strategy will fall through departmental cracks or become lost in
functional silos. Breaking strategy into specific parts is to lose sight of the motives behind strategic
imperatives, resulting in workers refusing to follow up and ensure the policy is being applied.

Process Organization

A business cycle is a series of activities to attain a business objective. Classically,

processes are seen as informal cross-functional activities that transcend an organization's
vertical and hierarchical structure. The hierarchical structure provides a stable institutional
framework, and the structures within the framework are the organizing operation. Following
Japanese experience, a modern concept of business processes came into being – that expert
planners and designers should structure them around the pull of consumer expectations
instead of driving them top-down. The business processes determine, from the bottom up, the
items expected from the specialists for business process management. Deploying a top-level
plan, however, also involves teamwork across functional areas.

Cross-Functional Structure

Companies like Toyota say that balancing cross-functional priorities through their
organizational domains is a crucial strategic tool. This has been compared to producing fabric
that requires crossing a horizontal woof (or weft) over a vertical warp to create a solid garment:

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the functional areas of a company are woof, and centrally organized cross-functional
committees serve as a warp by performing regular reviews of the management of strategic
goals in functional areas.

Downsizing

Increasing environmental dynamism and volatility brought on by globalization

and the advent of new types of hyper-competition, such as that of internet companies,
have made common consolidation and downsize. Yale sociologist Richard Sennett
(2006) wrote about the new capitalism's versatile organization: state-of-the-art
companies need employees who can learn new skills, rather than cling to old skills. He
claims that the dynamic organization underscores the need to process and interpret
evolving knowledge and practice bodies. A person's value as a strategist is less their skill
based on previous experience, and more about their ability to deal with new topics and
issues.
Downsizing is synonymous with the re-engineering of business processes,
which was initially described as the use of information technology to overhaul business
processes fundamentally but usually meant the overhaul of business processes resulting
in a revolutionary shift. The idea is for a senior management team to consider how to
structure a company to its strategic intent if it is to be reorganized from scratch. This
typically leads to the development of a more flatter system with less middle

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management. It may negate a significant organizational benefit as it reduces the

collective corporate memory.
Downsizing also includes outsourcing. It shifts internal tasks to an external
organization; these are usually activity relations that do not directly contribute to profit
and can be carried out more effectively outside. Outsourced services include other
support roles, often referred to as back-office operations, such as recruitment,
accounting, and IT. It is dangerous if a service breakdown affects critical operations
because it is not easy to monitor the center's response.

System and Systems Thinking

Systems are formal structures, written protocols, rules, and pro-certificates

that condition routines and standard working methods. These are important for an
organizational organization since these explain roles and procedures for reporting.
Large parts of an organization span system boundaries and have interconnected
components that work together. A 'systems' way of thinking means that people can see
the whole picture, while there is always a danger of sub-optimization in a function-ally
top-down organization. A strategic management approach to processes is to take a
holistic view of an organization's operations and include an integrative analytical
structure to direct strategic decision making. The best-known of these is the
7frameworkrk of McKinsey & Company.

McKinsey's 7S framework

The concept was presented in their Bestselling book In Search of Excellence

(1982) by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman. Seven variables are crucial for driving
change when looking at an enterprise as a whole, but the key thing about them is that
they're interlinked. Neither factor can be treated in solitary confinement; they must
function together.

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1. Strategy: those actions an organization plans in response to, or anticipation of, changes in the
external environment, customers, and competitors
2. Structure: the organization that divides tasks and provides for their coordination
3. Systems: the processes, procedures, formal, and informal
4. Style: the perception a senior management team creates of itself in the organization.
5. Staff: the socialization of managers in terms of what the business is about.
6. Skills: the organization's characterization in terms of what it does
best, its dominating attributes, or capabilities
7. Shared values (or superordinate goals): the guiding beliefs or fundamental ideas around which an
organization is built.

Changing strategy, structure, and systems can be implemented quickly, but the other factors
must also be strategically managed, especially shared values, a concept that is virtually the same as
core values, to be fully effective. It may take years to achieve improvements in non-strategy and
structure factors; the real speed of change is primarily a function of all seven variables.

Soft Strategy

Throughout the 1980s, around the time the 7frameworkrk was adopted, management writers
and consultants emphasized the so-called 'softball' essence of competitive advantage throughout
having an undefined corporate culture and associated interdependencies that are hard to replicate
for rivals. Others went on and argued in support of a soft-based approach to managing
organizations. Sumantra Ghoshal and Christopher Bartlett (1997) argued in favor of replacing what
they called hard elements – such as strategy, structure, and system – with soft ones, namely the
purpose, which they viewed as setting a strategic direction; the method, the use of self-directing
teams; And people, or the facilitation of engagement and interaction. This suggests a lack of formal
structure, which will undoubtedly make it difficult for strategic management to coordinate.
A similar concept is a strategic architecture, which is used to refer to networks and
infrastructural components, including a mixture of formal and informal management structures and
organizational culture, organized to connect activities and influence actions. Architecture is
hardwired into an organization, just as the designed a building will condition the way people work.
This concept may be compatible with the provision of a dynamic strategic capacity to reconfigure
and retain core competencies or strategic assets.
Karl Weick (1979) presented a dynamic definition of strategic organizing. He argued that what
defines how an organization performs as an entity is how organizational components often and
loosely come together. Weick argued using concepts originally associated with biology that means
are loosely connected to a purpose, in the sense that they reflect alternate pathways. Contrary to
traditional administrative views that complex systems should be decomposed into stable
subassemblies, Weick argued that strategic management should be loosely linked, involving
impermanence, dissolvability, and tacitness. Managing strategic goals is more like scoring goals in a
game of football than, say, moving your car towards a pre-programmed destination.

Strategic Planning – Revisited

Where does strategic planning leave this to? The days of classic strategic planning are gone.
Strategic initiatives have been more programs in the shorter term, more focused on priorities, and
less precise on how applications and services are being carried out at the local level. Strategic
planning now has less to do with structured strategic decision-making and more with a structure to

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coordinate how people handle strategically related activities in action. Implementation is achieved
through the structure and control structures of an organization, but it is widely accepted that policy
evolves through day-to-day management during its execution.
Strategic planning for many large and complex organizations is mainly an execution practice,
and it operates across medium-term strategies. The medium-term business plan is a guiding
structure for the information to be carried out at an average management level during annual
planning.

Strategic Control

Strategic control is the monitoring and review of the strategic purpose, objectives, and strategic
management of an organization; this involves organizing and managing adaptations and changes
during the strategy's ongoing execution.

Since introduced, the role of strategy in operations has been a neglected field of strategic
management.

Strategy execution is strategy management during day-to-day management and operations once a
strategy has been put in place within the organization.

Strategic performance management is a strategically controlled framework that allows the

implementation management of the delivery of its strategic goals by a senior level.

Strategic control levers are four information-based mechanisms that can be used by senior
managers to direct an enterprise into a desired decisive role.

Strategic control is the overall regulation of the efficacy of the top management's strategic
strategy, including its components in the longer and shorter term. It involves implementing a policy
guided by an organizational-wide evaluation framework in everyday management(Kaplan and
Norton, 2008). The strategic review is central to strategic control. It plays a critical role in the
learning process of strategy and brings together the leadership team of an organization to focus on
long-term improvement. However, assessments and evaluations of strategically related activities are
performed across the business. To ensure that strategic evaluations at the top of the organization
are successful, the entire multi-level organizational evaluation structure will be reviewed on its own.

The Review Wheel

The interpretation of an organization's evaluation program can be defined by three factors:

long-term purpose, objectives, and strategy; short-term implementation and execution; and overall
performance input in light of meaning. The shaded boxes at the top left to denote the long-term
purpose, objectives, and strategy. The shaded boxes at the top right represent implementation and
execution (the strategic performance management for the short term) (Witcher and Chau, 2014).

A review wheel is positioned at the bottom left to show several periodic review levels. At its
heart is the day-to-day management of activities, where processes are controlled continuously,
according to the PDCA principle; regular operational analysis is frequent and single-looped, requiring

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rectifying and exploitative learning. The next level involves less frequent strategic reviews of the
progress of strategically linked priorities; these are mainly dual-looped and affect explorative
learning. The final step on the wheel is an annual diagnostic or company analysis of handling the
organization's core areas.

Both layers of analysis feed into one another to inform a top-level analysis of long-term
purpose, objectives, and strategy so that they can be modified, followed up, and updated. A shaping,
evaluating, and analyzing practice would be reviewing the longer-term components of strategic
management. Implementation of the strategy to the right as a downward box by emphasis,
alignment, incorporation, and analysis – is about strategy in practice.

Strategic Performance Management

Strategic performance management is the translation into the day-to-day management of

longer-term goals and strategies. Tomanagementnt deals with implementation through the
establishment of organizational structures and systems, but in daily management, there also needs
to be an organizing framework for the execution of strategy. Strategic goals are converted as

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medium-term plans into organizational management, which are defined as annual KPI metrics to be
used in process management.
KPIs are interpreted as goals to drive continuous and gradual change in business processes.
Around the same time, it provides a limited range of ambitious strategic objectives to use as overall
strategic priorities. Usually, these include a rethink of how procedures are structured and executed.
The strategic performance management mechanism is focused on an ongoing succession of strategic
focus, alignment, integration, and review – a continuous FAIR period (Witcher and Butterworth,
1999).
The annual series continues by focusing the organizations first on the strategic targets. These
are then used to align strategically the action plans and the systems used at the operational level for
routine annual planning. Regular management is carried out to incorporate the strategic objectives
into operations based on these strategies. Eventually, the success and implementation of strategic
goals are checked at the end of the process. The results are used to guide the reorientation of the
priorities for the next process and the following year.

Focus

Senior managers, who are part of a team typically composed of departmental and functional
heads, are the primary participants in the cycle focus phase. The first concern is to determine
corporate operational needs. The goal here is to ensure the organization's core areas work towards
optimizing value. A second issue is the development of cross-functional requirements to ensure that
department-wide strategic goals are in order. Those are shown listed as balanced scorecard goals on
the left-hand side of the chart. KPIs are developed by the senior management team, which addresses
both the departments' customized value creation needs and the organization's strategic cross-
functional needs. The KPIs are used to drive continuous improvement in day to day management.
Ultimately, the senior management team chooses a limited number of annual strategic targets
that serve as overarching priorities to bring about a degree of creative progress that would
otherwise not be accomplished by routine management. Their purpose is to encourage exploratory
organizational learning – as they are typically ambitious and ask an organization to rethink their
existing organizational routines.
The content of an annual strategic goal will depend on two main things: a need to address an
issue that is concerned with the mission of the organization and a need to move the organization
forward to a new visionary position significantly. The critical point is that these strategic targets are
annual objectives to be discussed by all and that they must also be very few, say, between one and
four: that is, they are called the critical few.

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Alignment

The critical few in a company are taken as their strategic objectives to be used in routine local
preparation and used at other levels. Although planning is mainly based on local priorities and KPIs,
as a tool for organizing daily schedules, the critical few objectives take precedence. This includes
preparing plans of action and moving them between teams to reach agreements with potential
partners on how to achieve the targets in daily operations.
Developing action plans is an iterative activity. It is sounded out by affected parties and
potential participants; passing possibilities to and from is like a catch game, and this activity is called
a catch ball. Junior teams typically have to bring their ideas to the superiors and may need to change
their plans, perhaps several times. For carrying out projects, both objectives and the means to
achieve them are considered together.
Some strategic goals may need a long period of development to sort out their day-to-day
management implications. Typically, for several activities, including departments, these need to
clarify the extent of their relevance. Such an event that solves problems is usually a job for project
management. Once the catch ball is approaching completion, departmental management supervises
the agreements' ramifications to verify that the necessary workload and resource level is feasible.

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Integration

When plans are completed, teams start implementing their operations as part of their regular
management practices with the newly defined targets. During integration, management principles
and market methodologies get into their own. The guiding concept for managing goals is the PDCA
cycle; work is tracked to plan (objectives), and teams respond by problem-solving to correct
anomalies and act to ensure that improvements are successful. A hallmark of proper process
management is to make sure priorities are clear and appropriate. Departmental heads have to
ensure that budgets, staff reviews, and benefits are compatible with program management. It is
essential to ensure that individuals are not overwhelmed and can provide the development support
they need.
This approach is somewhat different from the management by objectives (MbO), which is still
commonly used in organizations. MbO is an approach that deploys strategy and cascades goals down
through an organization's levels by subdividing them so that the purposes of a superior become sub-
goals of subordinates, which in turn pass their goals on to their assistants, and so forth. This
emphasizes achieving the goals rather than on how-to, or process, to make them.

Review

Systematically, the review phase of the annual FAIR cycle includes the involvement of the top
executive and senior manager level in an analysis of how an organization's core areas are being
handled concerning strategy and target. This operation goes under various names; the 'executive
audit' and 'president's diagnosis' are the most common. It requires the involvement of top and
senior management levels. The aim is to make a diagnosis of the most critical issues by listening to
reports and personal accounts provided by staff in different sections of the organization.
This happens at the end of the annual FAIR process and reflects its evaluation phase. Top-level
participation as auditors is essential, as it provides a basis for understanding how the organization's
strategy is being implemented at the operational level. It also provides for the next focus process
with information. The auditing activity brings senior managers into touch with the organizational
realities, and their involvement helps to provide an overall strategy for leadership and
encouragement for lower-level management. Thus, the operation offers a lever for a form of
strategic control that promotes organizational learning and new strategies emerging.
The Nissan Motor Company identifies 13 core business areas for creating value (Witcher,
Chau, and Harding, 2008). It also specifies seven core competencies: daily control; the determination
of the vital few objectives; the coordination of the essential few through development and
deployment; the establishment of control items (targets and means); analytical and problem- solving
abilities; check and action taken; and leadership and participation by high-ranking personnel.
Corporate headquarters reviews its subsidiary organizations annually to understand and
influence how Nissan managers and employees use the core competencies in the core areas of
business. Once completed, a two-page status report is published throughout the corporate group to
compare how the subsidiaries score for the level of development they have achieved for each of the
competencies. The findings are made evident in this way. If the center appropriately manages the
input, the flaws of a plan would be apparent.

Levers of Strategic Control

Robert Simons (1995), a Harvard Business School accounting specialist, has offered a strategic
control framework for understanding how senior managers gather information to advance strategy.

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In doing so, he observes that control systems need to accommodate not only the intended strategy
but also those to emerge from local experimentation and initiatives of independent personnel. Four
types of structures are identified: values, limits, diagnostic control, and interactive control. Senior
managers may use these tools to transform a company into a competitive position they prefer.

Lever 1: Belief Systems

Belief systems encourage the quest for new opportunities and guide them. This is done
through a specific set of purpose statements formally communicated by senior managers and
systematically reinforced to provide the organization with the fundamental values and direction. The
notion of conviction suggests that the ideals of an organization 's life must be profoundly ingrained
and based on the intent. Initially, Simons did not include opinions but later changed his mind,
reflecting a contemporary emphasis on vision and its relevance to leadership.

Lever 2: Diagnostic Control System

Boundary systems set limits for belief systems' opportunities-seeking behavior. They consist of
sets of rules and sanctions that restrict search but, at the same time, help clarify those areas of risk
that should be avoided by the organization. There are various organizational constraints in boundary
systems, such as specific and strict codes of conduct. These may be influences on such topics as
regulatory requirements and public and political opinion. Senior management's function is to state
and cascade an organization's core values and goals, assess market risks, and concentrate
subordinates to ease exerted pressure by scope and size.

Level 3: Diagnostic Control System

Diagnostic control systems motivate and monitor organizational behavior to achieve specified
objectives. These are structured structures designed to track target progress in implementing and
executing strategic and related plans. They provide a diagnostic check on the workings of strategy.
Often, they inspire, track, and reward the achievement of particular goals. There are feedback
mechanisms that are central to managing management. Managers get input from their superiors to
match the company's operations with the organization's priorities.
Simons outlined three diagnostic control capabilities: measuring a process's outputs,
predetermining standards against which the results are compared, and correct deviations from
those standards. These ensure that managers can control outputs through careful input selection
and address critical performance variables that represent essential dimensions of a strategy. This is
possible to pass diagnostic control systems to local management. Unlike boundary systems,
individuals can accomplish the desired ends because subordinates have already agreed to the
process specification. It is only by necessity that senior managers may get involved.

Lever 4: Interactive Control System

Interactive management systems promote an organization by stimulating emerging new ideas;

these include hierarchical information systems that are used by managers to participate in delegated
decision-making processes on a daily and personal basis. Several forms of interactive controls are
used, but the critical element is the personal engagement of senior managers in-progress reviews,
particularly for face-to-face cross-functional meetings. They encourage senior managers to seek to

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create new strategies for improvement. This activity helps shape the agendas for broader debate
and includes gathering information from routine channels outside.
Simons notes three distinctive characteristics of integrated control systems: information is
created by the system and presented by senior managers; operating managers of certain
organizational levels must regularly review the system, and the data produced must be discussed
face-to-face at meetings at all levels. This program is a trigger and catalyst for all an organization's
action plans.
Simons argues for a control balance between positive and negative control to harmonize the
restrictive attributes of boundary and diagnostic systems with the more expansive characteristics of
belief and interactive systems. Strategic performance management puts diagnostic and interactive
control under pressure. However, a strong emphasis on the overall main strategic goals in daily
management is required for successful strategic management, with a concentrate on 'how to get
things done' rather than 'what to do.' If things are done in the right way, if the right things are done,
it will become more apparent. In all of this, there still has to be a belief in the importance of
information and evidence in addressing issues.

Strategic Leadership

Strategic leadership how top management and other executive levels guide the company to work
for the accomplishment of the purpose of the organization.
Since the primary direction of strategic management is a top-down activity, it is essential to
have the nature of the approach of top management to lead and influence the rest of the
organization.

The four leadership competencies comprise the skills of attention, meaning, trust, and self, each of
which must be managed.

Leadership styles are the distinctive manners in which leaders act

to influence the strategic management of their organizations.

Leadership and management may have different characteristics; it is essential to understand their
differences if they work together to promote effective strategic management;

The primary responsibility for the project strategy and ensuring it works is at the top of the
company. The executive and other senior managers are expected to direct the company to achieve
its objective. Effective strategic leadership is the foundation for using the Strategic Management
process successfully.
Leadership is the capacity of a person or group of individuals to influence others to attain the
organization's intent and goals. Strategic leadership is the style, and general approach embodied and
used by senior management to articulate purpose, goals, and strategy to influence implementation
and strategic control. Its nature varies at different stages of the development of an organization,
particularly with scale when senior levels become more distant from the daily management.
Leadership styles differ depending on the senior manager's personalities and group dynamics.
Whatever the shape and design, however, strategic leadership will foster synergy and harmony
around the organization.
A leader's common notion is that of an individual being pursued by others. There may be
many reasons to follow, but it is usually the leaders who exercise power to influence events. In the
sense of strategic management, a leader is one who has the potential to move the company to a

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shared goal by manipulating others. Through this sense, of course, the most influential individuals
inside a company are the executives and other senior managers; they make the most critical
strategic decisions. Although decisions can emerge and be worked out involving a lot of people,
ultimately it is only the top managers who make the decisions (or choose not to make them) for an
organization as a whole.
There will be people with leadership qualities and abilities at every level of the organization:
those who lead units, sections, teams, and specialists in essential areas of knowledge and skills.
Many of these would be critical for motivating and inspiring others, located in various areas of an
organization, to create strategic change. People's management ability is central, especially in
developing core competencies.
Peter Senge (2006) argued in a book about the learning organization for some kind of
organizational leadership that improves strategic skills and decision-making. A leader is someone
who can play three roles: a creator of organizational structures to encourage the kind of people who
say 'we have done it ourselves;' an instructor who teaches people how to improve themselves in a
way that is a priority for the organization; and a steward who uses strategic intent to add a deep
sense to the ambitions of a person. There is also an extra skill to use systems analysis to see and
understand the essential interdependencies of the company that affect action and ties.
Observers usually say that a successful leader should seamlessly transfer skills between
various types of leadership, depending on the situation they face at any time. To some degree, this
depends on emotional intelligence: an ability to identify and appreciate one's own emotions and
other's emotions. High emotional intelligence includes the ability to articulate openly about feelings,
control and use good effect emotions, and empathize with others. That may expect a lot, but it is
essential to consider these qualities, at least.
Executive leadership is by its very definition remote in the sense that there would be daily
interaction with top executives only for a small part of the workers of a large company. In this case,
leadership appearance is essential. Writing regarding princes in the early sixteenth century, Niccolo
Machiavelli (1532) observed that men usually judge by their eyes rather than by their ears. While all
are in a position to watch, few are in a place to come in direct contact with senior executives. All see
what you seem to be; few experiences what you are. How leaders do is significant as an indication of
reputation and legitimacy, as reflected in the symbols and artifacts associated with them.

Four Competencies of Leadership

Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus (1985) identified four management competencies for ethical
leadership – attention, meaning, trust, and self.

The Management of Attention

This is an ability to attract and draw people to them, to sustain and encourage them with their
attentiveness. This is usually associated with charismatic leadership; At the same time, a leader
might be ordinary. It is the strength of an underlying dream that inspires and provides a sense of
certainty about what will happen next, and that it will happen.

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The Management of Meaning

It is a way of recognizing underlying patterns to express separate components as a cohesive

and understandable whole. In a chaotic environment, followers need to see the path forward for
coordinated energy and attention to be able to react. Being educated is not enough; the use of
language and visual slogans that express clarity is essential. Explanations should be kept clear,
understandable, and abstract.

The Management of Trust

A leader needs to be trusted to keep a constant theme; in other words, while an organization
has to change goals periodically as events unfold, a leader must be true to its underlying principles.
These may not be articulated as such, but they should hold and be conveyed in similar phrases and
slogans, repeated over a sense of who the leader is and what they stand for. When loyalty is to be
sustained over time, others must feel a constancy of intent or feel betrayed.

The Management of Self

A leader should know his or her skills and not stress about making decisions or agonizing
about improvement and outcomes. He or she must focus on mistakes for long enough to learn from
them and step quickly forward again. This gives others confidence; it is not the leaders' trust that
counts but the assurance of their influence and acts.

Leadership Styles

James McGregor Burns (1978), a political scientist, distinguishes transformative and

transactional leadership in his book Leadership. Trans-formational leadership is empowering to take
advantage of the follower's motivations and higher needs, thereby engaging the 'follower's full
person.' He implies that the relationships between most leaders and followers are transactional
when leaders approach followers to swap one item for another; in most of the relationships
between leaders and followers, bargaining is vital. Such theories have informed Strategy Systems.
Transformational leadership combines individual self-interest with an organization's broader
mission to promote a shared sense of purpose. It generates excitement when it is successful and
raises enthusiasm for the challenges of bringing change. On the other hand, transactional leadership
is more mission-centric, and certain specific management frameworks used to explain goals and
commitments and provide positive performance feedback.
A heightened type of transformational leadership is characterized by a charismatic, dominant
personality, which is a useful attribute to push past barriers to things. Still, the kind of dramatic
success that charismatic leadership produces can lead to hubris and a leadership style that wants to
micromanage. This is abrasive when subordinates believe a chief executive can be a diligent listener
and a partner in collegial leadership styles. A contrasting leadership style is a low key, mostly self-
effacing and quiet.
According to Jim Collins, big businesses have leaders who do not force change or seek to
inspire people directly; instead, they have leaders who work with the organization's core values.
Leaders are working to develop a balanced corporate culture that can produce long-term success. It
is not commanded and orders, but it demands that everyone stick to a precise method of practice. It
is about allowing people the ability to participate in rational thinking and then pursue it with artful

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action. Collins believes that the challenges of participation, commitment, motivation, and progress
are melting away as they take care of themselves in a straightforward, organized way.

Leadership and Management

There is often a distinction between leadership and strategy on the one hand and
management and control on the other. This is a view that encourages senior executives to think they
are doing strategy while others are doing management. Initially, this separation began with the
classical notion that the execution of the plan would obey formulation. There is a growing belief that
leadership is distinct from management.
Abraham Zaleznik (1977) was one of the first to argue in the Harvard Business Review that
leadership and management are different roles: a leader is a shaper and mover of change, while a
manager is based on procedures, coordination and working within the current organization. The
distinction is not readily known in certain national cultures; in Japan, there are no equivalent leaders
expected to manage the separation.
Warren Bennis (1993) described the differences between management practices and
leadership. While leading is about influencing people to go in a specific direction, managing is about
taking responsibility for actions.
The two hands, unfortunately, don't speak to each other much. Strategimanagementnt needs
leadership to understand how the company handles mission, especially in those core business areas
or processes critical for competitive advantage. Domain awareness is essential in this; it's knowledge

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and understanding of how an enterprise operates. This is a daunting environment for members
brought in from outside an organization. It is particularly so for strategic management, where the
competitive advantage is built on vital tools unique to the business.

Strategic Change

Organizational culture starts with the leadership given by the founder of an organization. The
core principles set in the early days and an organization's development and growth ultimately
imprints a distinctive character that is likely to continue even after the initial founders and managers
have left. When an entity expands, it recruits new members motivated by the original ideals and
spreads them. The culture of an organization, as its diversity becomes more similar, becomes more
distinct. If events call for radical change, group-thinking is a disadvantage, though.
If the need arises, perhaps because of a disaster, a new leader and team may find it
challenging to execute a change programmed. John Kotter (1996), Harvard Leadership Professor,
devised an eight-stage sequence to guide the strategic and cultural transition. He argues that they
are all important and that any failure to implement them is why change programs fail:

1. Establish a sense of urgency: this makes others aware of the need for change and works to
action them quickly while motivation is strong.
2. Create a guiding coalition: put together a group with enough power to drive the change and
work as a team.
3. Develop a change vision: change direction to develop strategies for achieving the vision.
4. Communicate a vision for others to buy into as many as possible need to understand and
accept the vision with its associated strategies – a vision should be communicated by a factor
of 10, 100, even 1,000.

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5. Empower action across the organization: remove obstacles to change; change systems and
structures that seriously undermine the vision; encourage risk-taking and non-traditional
ideas, activities, and actions.
6. Generate short-term wins: plan for achievements that can easily be made visible and follow
through with these to recognize and reward those employees who were involved.
7. Never let up: continuously sustain and reinforce the increasing credibility of the change,
recruit, promote champions, develop these and other employees who can implement the
vision, and reinvigorate the change process with new projects, themes, and change agents.
8. Incorporate changes into the culture: the new ways of doing things must be seen to
compare favorably with traditional ways, articulate the connections between the new
behaviors and organizational success, develop the means to ensure leadership development
and succession.

Kotter 's sequence for change is logical, but perhaps perseverance is the most critical
change (and luck) leadership philosophy. However, it should be remembered that most
organizations are everyday affairs and that the people in them (including clients) are human
beings. Organizations and people are rarely prepared for strategic management. So, being
tough-skinned as well as open-minded is essential to leaders. They have to run and manage
their organizations regardless of the circumstances, and necessarily, it's not a strategy, but
how the procedure is handled that matters.
To be effective in strategic management, leaders must be able to see and appreciate the
organization's larger picture in terms of mission – the external and internal climate. Various
and sometimes contradictory knowledge sources must be weighed against a wide range of
possibilities and tests. Goals should be both confident and yet realistic. Over time, the
strategies or tactics used to achieve strategic objectives should be reliable and transparent
about competitive advantage. The organizational structure and strategic planning should be
conducive and contribute to successful daily management implementation of the strategy.
Leaders must understand their organizations and adopt a suitable style fit for the long-term
purpose.

Self-Help: You can also refer to the sources below to help you further understand
the lesson:
Witcher, B. J. 2020, Absolute essentials of strategic management (1st Ed.) Routledge, New York

Retrieved from

https://b-ok.cc/book/5304725/25a98e

Young, F. C., 2015, Strategimanagementnt made simple. Manila: REX Book Store

Flores, Marivic F. 2017, Business policy and strategy. Intramuros, Metro Manila: Unlimited Books
Library Services and Publishing Inc.

Let’s Check

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Thank You

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