We conducted a secondary research to see what it takes to be a strategic leader. In general, researchers and scholars have been made to perceive that conceive strategic management, as the activity carried out by a leader, within the company. However, the leader’s performance has tended to be seen, only, in operational terms, fundamentally linked to planning, decision making and implementation of the structures and processes that determine the operation of the company.
The visibility of these actions is what has made the strategic leadership end up associating more, such as management, than as leadership. This emphasis on the operational nature of their competencies has reduced the interest in understanding the relevance of the strategic functions of the leader as creator and manager of the “the meanings” of business activity. His strategic role as creator and manager of the meaning of business activity is important when it comes to understanding “who is and where he wants to go” the company. The strategic leadership, therefore, by bringing together the collective ideology of the company (creating an identity of purpose and objectives among all employees), greases the operational machinery of the organization, allowing it to function in a more agile way, with less friction and greater unity of criteria, to achieve its business objectives.
The competition between organizations in the 21st century is constant, demanding, and complex; full of opportunities and threats. Through strategic leadership effective, strategic planning is aimed at improving the processes of organizations and therefore, its competitiveness. Leadership as such affects the performance of organizations and therefore, strategic leadership is the formulation and articulation of a vision that represents the incorporation of strategic objectives.
Strategic leadership is a competition intangible that can lead to a differential of central capacity in an organization. Because strategic leadership involves the organization as a whole and its relationship with the environment, this falls on the high manage the task of implementing and executing it. The main purpose of this article is to analyze the conceptual aspect of strategic leadership and how it can help organizations increase their level of competence in the market.
Uncertainty, increase stability, increase resources and reduce the impact of competition (Bass, 2007). The right strategic leadership focuses on creating a favorable environment In the organization. Strategies are a product of the individual’s interaction as a leader and the internal and external environment of the organization (Bass, 2007).
The companies that manage to sustain effective strategic leadership are constituted in market helms compared to the average of the competitors (Pulgarin, 2012). Strategic leadership is the ability to influence others to voluntarily make decisions constantly in order to increase the long-term viability of the organization and at the same time maintain financial stability in the short term (Rowe, 2001). The strategic leadership formulates and implements immediate impact strategies and conservation of long-term goals for improving the durability, growth and viability of the organization (Rowe, 2001). Nancy et al. (2000) mention that when an organization seeks a change in its strategy, they look for leaders capable of assuming such changes. At the same time, this leadership has a solid and positive expectation of the performance expected of their superiors and subordinates. Rowe (2001) states that the result of a well executed strategic leadership can create benefits for employees, customers, and Providers in organizations.
Strategic leadership refers to the ideology of the organization, identity, mission, the vision and is seen from the macro environment to differentiate your basic skills (Rowe,2001). Several empirical evidence has been carried out to strengthen the issue of strategic leadership as a central axis in the competitiveness of the companies; such as its effect on innovation, survival and job satisfaction,either individually or in the aspect of collaborative leadership.
One of the most reasonable steps of strategic leadership argues that strategic leadership shares the premise that a day-to-day organization emerges in a process consistent with its vision, that is, the aspect Collaborative takes relevance. Jean-Louis Denis (2001), conducted studies in health centers in the US to show how leaders can get changes in organizations where the strategic leadership is shared, that is the Collaborative aspect takes relevance.
Beatty and Hughes (2005), state that to obtain a solid strategic leadership it is essential to obtain these three skills: • Systemic: organizations are systems interdependent and interconnected, when leaders make decisions in a part of the organization these have an impact on other parts of the organization too. • Focused future: a strategic leader operates with long-range agendas, integrating short term goals with long approaches term. • Oriented to change: a strategic leader is frequently a factor of change in organizations Elenkov et al. (2005) demonstrate the relationship between strategic leadership and the level of innovation in an organization. The author used data from six countries where he discovered that the strategic leadership behavior has a positive relationship with executive influence in product quality and innovation in a specific organization Studies of Zúñiga-Vicente and Vicente-Lorente (2006) at the Bank of Spain obtained results that confirmed the significant effect and positive of a change in strategic leadership in the probability of survival of organizations. Another result obtained from this study was that the banks with the highest survival rate, are those that have decided to focus on activities where they find a solid competitive position, which They are constantly interested in innovation and in offering new financial products for their clients.
Hence, being a strategic leader in the current context is more challenging than ever before!
