Cornerstone College of International Studies (CCIS)
LINK BETWEEN STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
The link between strategic management and leadership
Management and leadership must be intertwined to achieve the goals of the organization. Strategic management is the organized development of resources in all the functional areas of a company. The functional areas are financial and management manufacturing among others. Strategic management is a set of policies that the management of a firm or organization adopts and guides the direction of the entity. It takes into account the environment which the entity is operating in. In other words, strategic management aligns with the organizations mission and goals through effective utilization of the resources. Leadership, on the other hand, is the guiding of an organization towards the desired result. It also takes into account the desired mission and vision of the organization. It works on the precedence of strategic planning and management in order to achieve long-term success.
Strategic management and leadership are linked in that leadership is the bridge between strategic management and the desired results. Through leadership, a firm or an organization is able to achieve its set mission and goals. Strategic management is how the top managers formulate and implement the objectives of the company. Leadership, on the other hand, involves leaders influencing the subordinates to make their own decisions for the improvement of the organization. It is worth noting that neither of these two aspects is self-sufficient when it comes to the attainment of organizational goals. Apart from that, management and leadership should be effective for the success to be realized at the end. Ineffectiveness in the core components of the organization may result in failure of the business. The organization is productive when both management and leadership coordination are effective. While the managers come up with innovative ideas for the future prosperity of the organization, it is the duty of the leadership personnel to implement the ideas by influencing their minors positively and coaching them in order to actualize the ideas.
Leadership style refers to the way in which the leaders motivate employees, implement plans and also give guidelines on how duties and responsibilities should be carried out. There are various types of the leadership styles that can be adopted in different scenarios depending on the strategic decisions put in place by the top management. These leadership styles include transformational leadership, charismatic leadership, transactional leadership, situational leadership and laissez-faire leadership style. Leaders lead people while managers manage people. Leaders are the people that bring changes in an organization while managers sustain the changes in the organization.
Transformative leader constantly shares the vision of the organization with the employees. This kind of a leader usually delegates some of the responsibilities to the subordinates and gives them the authority to execute their decisions deemed necessary for the success. Another type of the leadership style is charismatic leadership. In this case, the leader influences the subordinates by use of enthusiasm. The presence of this leader symbolizes motivation to the workers and he/she is always in a position to encourage the employees to work toward the set goals. Unfortunately, a leader who is charismatic tends to believe more in himself/herself than he/she believes in others. This can be a major drawback to the strategic decisions. The subordinates may feel reluctant to go on with their duties when their leader is in absentia. It is, therefore, logical to say that decisions cannot be effectively made without the leader’s direct oversight. To avoid this, there is a need for a gr