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Applying Strategic
Leadership
Tengku Mohd Khairal Abdullah
 Learning Objective
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• Students should be able to explain on how to apply strategic

leadership within their own organizational context.
 Introduction
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• So far we have discussed about the four types of strategic

leadership. We also have discussed why strategic thinking is
lacking.
• Once you understood how to move between operational
thinking and strategic thinking, then the next question would be
‘how do you apply strategic thinking’?
 How do you apply strategic thinking?
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• We can address the above question through TWO fundamental

question:
• How will you gain strategic insight?
• How will you drive strategic change?
• The 1st question will inform where you should focus in order to
identify the best direction to go.
• The 2nd question will determine the principles used when
deciding how to proceed.
 Gaining Strategic Insight
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• Some of the most impactful insights in history are too often

presented as one-time occurrences that can’t possibly be
anticipated or repeated.
• Strategic Insight can be gained through TWO simple ways:
• Through PROCESS → with an emphasis on a structured and rigorous
review of inputs and factors.
• Through MINDFUL EXPERIENCE → emerging from relevant and
meaningful knowledge that allows one to gain useful observations
drawn out from firsthand experience.
 Gaining Strategic Insight
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• Process-based system has gained increasing sophistication as

technology has led to improvements in both data collection and
analysis.
• E.g. Walmart has developed sophisticated management information
systems that allow them to gain real-time insight into both short-term
and long-term trends.
• Experience-based insight has received similar attention.
• E.g. HP during 1970s led the earliest stages of computer revolution by
encouraging their managers not to learn from reports or management
meeting, but through MBWA.
• Many organizations use rigorous systematic rotations of employees to
move individuals between key roles that build up the working
knowledge of multiple industries or product categories. This
accumulated first-hand experience makes them better at making
connections and uncovering new opportunities.
 Identifying the ‘Right’ Approach
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• The key to becoming more effective at gaining strategic insight

is to first decide how to go about it.
• This can be performed by asking FIVE simple questions that
provide cues to the most appropriate approach in a given
situation:
• What historically been done?
• What is the state of industry, and what is normally done?
• What role is personal experience playing today, and what else could it
provide?
• What is the most relevant data, and how do you manage it?
• What would other relevant stakeholders consider credible?
• By considering these questions, you’ll be better prepared to
anticipate the conditions that might either process-driven or
experience-driven.
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Thank You