Introduction

In the first decade of the 20th-century business and organizational researchers and writers have increasingly made it clear that the two key things that increasingly distinguish the most successful and top-performing organizations from those that are mere ‘also-rans’ are strong strategic management and visionary leadership. Never has it been more important to move from merely managing organizations, focusing only on operational decisions, to strategic leadership. Without a clear and motivating vision and a skilled leadership team to move the organization towards the vision the successful organizations of today may not even survive the next decade.

Thus, effective strategic leadership is central to the future success of any organization. This starts with defining a clear strategic vision – setting out the leadership team’s strategic intent for the organization and its various businesses. This then needs to be translated into an agenda for action – not merely a ‘strategic plan’ but a set of guidelines or a road map clearly setting out where the business needs to go and empowering managers at all levels to make the multitude of decisions that they need to make in the clear understanding of where the business is heading.

But finally the organization needs managers to move from transactional management to transformational leadership. Real strategic management requires that leaders at all levels create the mindsets and behaviors that are needed to transform the organization from its existing paradigm to the new strategic paradigm that the vision sets forth. This new program will focus on the strategic thinking and leadership behaviors that a high-performance organization needs to guide it to a successful long terms future.

Objectives

This intensive five-day program will help you to learn how to:

• Develop the three key strategic agendas for leaders – Intellectual, Managerial and Behavioural.

• Enhance and improve your own and your organization's strategic thinking and ability to envision powerful strategic futures.

• Generate and support effective strategic thinking at all levels in the organization.

• Identify the most effective balance of Operational Excellence and Breakthrough Strategic Performance.

• Identify critical strategic issues and opportunities.

• Prioritize issues based on their capacity to enable real value creation.

• Lead and motivate teams and businesses in diverse, turbulent, and complex environments.

Benefits

Your skills in translating strategic vision into a clear roadmap for the organization/unit/team’s future

 Enhance

Following the completion of this unit, you will be able to:

• Interpret the internal and external forces shaping the future

• Develop an effective strategic roadmap through a clear vision and statement of strategic intent

• Identify the competencies and capabilities of strategically agile and effective organizations

• Recognize your own strategic leadership style, and the styles of others – and match leadership styles to the strategic necessities of the roadmap

• Effectively prepare and guide your organization, unit or team towards the vision

• Motivate people towards the strategic ‘light on the hill’!

• Command respect

Course Results

This unit has been designed to assist you to develop your ability and capabilities to:

• Think strategically about your organization’s future

• Identify strategically important issues and opportunities

• Interpret and identify the strategic implications affecting the organization now and likely to impact on the organization’s future

• Clearly articulate a strategic vision and a statement of strategic intent

• Your skills in translating strategic vision into a clear roadmap for the organization/unit/team’s future

• Identify the mindsets and behaviors needed to achieve the vision and follow the roadmap

• Identify and communicate clear strategic implementation plans and practice

• Develop your own strategic leadership styles

• Develop leadership within others in your own organization, unit or team

• Motivate people to achieve breakthrough performances

Core Competencies

This unit will assist you to understand and enhance your strategic behaviors around:

• Analytical strategic thinking

• Strategic visioning and articulating plausible futures for an organization, unit or team

• Communicating strategic intent and a strategic roadmap

• Effective implementation planning

• Structuring effective strategic teams and systems

• Displaying strategic leadership

• Balancing the demands for performance and strategic longer-term success

• Developing strategic leadership throughout units and teams

• Motivating and influencing people to achieve strategic success

• Allocating hard and soft resources to the places which will have a maximum strategic impact

Outlines

Day 1

Understanding The Strategic Environment

• Understanding the strategic leadership agenda – intellect, management, and behaviors

• Recognizing and interpreting forces in the strategic environment

• Understanding strategic inflection points and strategic scenarios

• Analyzing and prioritizing strategic issues

• Formulating strategic vision and expressing strategic intent

• Developing a strategic roadmap

Day 2

Understanding Strategic Models and Paradigms

• The strategic journey – common models and frameworks for strategic thinking (from Ansoff to Hamel via Porter and Mintzberg)

• Identifying strategic horizons and using the 7S framework

• Recognizing and developing the characteristics of strategic agility

• Understanding and leveraging strategic competences and skills

Day 3

Effective Strategic Implementation

• Strategic implementation tools and frameworks

• Structures and systems for strategic agility and performance

• Monitoring and adjustment

• Measurement, analysis and knowledge management

Day 4

Strategic Leadership

• Preparing for the future

• Effective styles and practices for strategic leadership

• Recognizing, analyzing and developing the strategic leadership styles used by you and others

• Developing inspiration and motivation

• Communicating the roadmap and gathering support

Day 5

Driving Strategic Performance & Success

• Transforming the organization to enable strategic success

• Balancing the focus on performance and strategy

• Spreading leadership capabilities throughout the organization

• Maximizing organizational learning and knowledge transfer to embed strategic success