An Effective Leadership requires an Effective System

An Effective Leadership requires an Effective System

Introduction:

Strategic leadership is becoming increasingly important in both the corporate and nonprofit sectors. Organizations and businesses are realizing that their current methods of decision-making are not working as well as they should, and in many cases the organizations that are doing well have not even bothered to develop a clear strategic leadership plan. This is a direct result of the lack of focus and direction that many people have on their own enterprises, and this is a problem that must be addressed if they want future success. To that end graduate students in the master's programs in strategic management are being trained to develop the necessary skills to become effective leaders. This article will explain what these graduate studies programs teach, and how the skills that are gained can be applied to various fields.

Strategic leadership theory is based on a number of important assumptions, some of which are quite controversial, including the claim that a company only needs one leader to lead it effectively, and that there is no need for top management to maintain contact with the rest of the organization. However, some contemporary behavioral researchers argue against this assertion, and suggest that even top management bears a significant amount of influence over the behavior of subordinates. This suggests that the effectiveness of strategic leadership program focuses attention on this issue and shows how understanding the influences of the top management can lead to more efficient interpersonal communications.

Advantages:

Behavioral science has developed some important concepts that can be useful in understanding organizational behavior. One of these concepts is the Fingelberg bargaining theory, which suggests that top management teams do not make good decisions due to how they are affected by previous decisions made by lower level workers. In this sense, it is suggested that lower level workers understand the psychological aspects of the organization in a way that higher level workers do not. In fact, behavioral scientists have theorized that there are some key personality traits that are generally related to effective decision-making, and these traits can help predict how top management teams will behave in certain situations.

In an initial study conducted by behavioural scientists Carla Coelho and John Easter, they found that the results of a task where top management teams were required to make a decision regarding the location of a particular manufacturing facility did not differ from those that took place under different scenarios. The results were consistent with the view that lower level workers do not exert any effect on the final decision, whereas top managers did. Easter and Coelho argue that the results support the view that strategic leadership entails accepting responsibility for the decisions of lower level workers. According to Easter, however, it is not possible to conclude that people at the bottom of the pyramid are truly interested in being a part of the decision-making process; rather, the decision-making process is primarily controlled by powerful upper managers.

Importance: 

Easter and Coelho suggest several explanations for the results they obtained in their first study. One of these is that, as in many cases, the actual reasons for the companies' success are closely related to the structure of their hierarchy, and so are not likely to be solved through purely attaining "strategic leadership" certification. The two researchers believe that the main reason that their hypothetical high performing companies did not exhibit the same ability to effectively control their bottom line is that senior managers fail to apply their knowledge and skills to the actual decision-making process. Their study therefore supports the notion that the ability to apply strategic leadership theory to real-world situations is an extremely difficult task.

David Finkelstein is an organizational psychologist and business consultant who has spent considerable amounts of time studying the relationship between people at all levels of an organization and the process by which they make key decisions. Dr. Finkelstein argues that the concept of strategic management should not be limited to top management teams. He maintains that anyone in an organization who is competent enough to think creatively and effectively can also be called a strategic leader. According to Finkelstein, effectiveness of strategic leadership can be achieved through various different means, such as by encouraging and enabling talented people to reach their full potential, and by training employees to build skills that will enable them to contribute to organizational development in a real way.

Finkelstein's primary focus in this book is the idea that the best way to improve the performance of a company or organization is to motivate its people by setting high standards and providing clear instructions. According to Finkelstein, such a policy not only helps to build high quality organizations, but it also leads to high levels of motivation among the people who are already in the organization. Such high standards are likely to motivate even high performing leaders to work even harder than they might normally do. The effectiveness of strategic management therefore is the ability to build organizations that are both highly profitable and effective in their daily operations. Crieit blogs have many great articles related to strategic management and leadership.

Conclusion and Results: 

The importance of effectiveness of strategic management is certainly not new. Finkelstein himself has gone on record as having questioned the very foundation of the concept. However, his observations over the years have given him much greater depth and understanding of what he terms as the "tradition of mediocre leadership." In his view, mediocre leaders who have attained great success in the past simply did not possess the qualities that would allow them to be successful today. Finkelstein has spent the better part of the last 20 years perfecting his theories of effective leadership, and through his own life experiences, he has developed a number of important guidelines for getting these same leaders to achieve even greater success in their chosen fields. Visit crieit for more.

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