Becoming A Strategic Leader

Today’s organizations face difficult challenges in order to remain competitive—the quickening pace of change, increasing uncertainty, growing ambiguity, and complexity. To meet these challenges, organizations must broaden the scope of leadership responsibility for strategic leadership and engage more people in the process of leadership. In Becoming a Strategic Leader Rich Hughes and Kate Beatty from the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) offer executives and managers a handbook for implementing a strategic leadership process that reaches leaders at all levels of organizations. Based on CCL’s successful Developing the Strategic Leader Program, this book outlines the framework of strategic leadership and contains practical suggestions on how to develop the individual, team, and organizational skills needed for institutions to become more adaptable, flexible, and resilient. The authors also show how individual managers can exercise effective strategic leadership through their distinctive and systemic approach—thinking, acting, and influencing.

A strategic leader is essentially the leader of any organization and someone who has to steer the company in times of change, whilst motivating and inspiring their team. Strategic Leadership from the renowned leadership expert John Adair encourages leaders to focus on tomorrow rather than yesterday. It explores the nature and origin of strategic leadership, transferable skills and the art of inspiring others. It then describes the role itself and broad functions of that role such as building and maintaining a team, achieving a common task and motivating and developing the individual. It moves on to assess the skills you need to be effective, and the seven generic functions that make up the role of strategic leader which include providing direction, strategic thinking and planning, building partnerships and developing tomorrow's leaders. Full of checklists, summaries and historical examples, Strategic Leadership will encourage you to ask the right questions whilst defining the role and skills of a strategic leader.

Be a more effective leader with strategic thinking Leading with Strategic Thinking reveals what effective leaders do differently. Eschewing the one-size-fits-all leadership model, this helpful guide outlines four general leadership types and demonstrates how each type achieves success – whether through personal vision, structured process, collaboration, or by empowering others. The authors identify the actions and skills that distinguish strategic leadership, drawn from interviews and focus groups with over three hundred leaders from around the world. Examples and case studies illustrate these concepts in action, and the provided reference materials steer readers toward more advanced information on this important topic. The disruptive forces of technology and globalization raise new challenges for leaders. This book is a manual that will help executives and aspiring leaders harness these forces and address the two central questions of strategic leadership: How do the best leaders develop their strategy? How do effective leaders drive strategic change? Becoming a strategic leader isn’t about mimicking an icon. The most effective leaders seize opportunity in a way that consciously integrates environmental requirements, stakeholder expectations, and personal ability. Leading with Strategic Thinking shows what these leaders do, and gives anyone the tools to be a more strategic leader.

This book helps leaders focus on, and achieve, their main purpose - the development and maintenance of a high performing organization. You will find the habits, actions, and tactics that have worked in that crucible and what I believe will continue to work under the dynamic conditions leaders face today. The book is framed around six habits gleaned from leaders who have successfully answered the following questions. Do I need to think differently? What is the environment telling me? Where are we going and where do we need to go? How do I position myself and/or my organization, team and individuals to take advantage of opportunities presented by the environment? How do I multiply myself though other people? How do I find and turn talent into performance? How do I ignite the soul of followers to achieve greatness beyond what anyone imagined possible? How do I know if we are succeeding? How do we continually adapt to change and maintain profitability and our competitive advantage? The Strategic leader answers those questions by identifying the actions and tactics used to establish a holistic learning approach to leading. It accomplishes its objective by describing how strategic leaders use new actions and tactics -jumping the curve, minimum specifications, organizational fitness, generative conversations, chunking change, lighting the way, running for daylight, bonding, bridging, bartering, and institution building - to create direction, establish alignment and commitment, in order to produce results in a dynamic globalizing world. In the first section you will discover the value of the leader’s Wheel to develop a high performing organization. In the following chapters you will discovering the six habits that enable you to turn the Wheel: acquiring a strategic mindset, artistry, anticipating, articulating, aligning and assuring. Your path to discover these secrets will be aided by two original self assessment tools: The Strategic Thinking Questionnaire (STQ) and the Strategic Leadership Questionnaire (SLQ) which are available to those who purchase the book.

In the second edition of the best-selling Becoming a Strategic Leader, Richard L. Hughes, Katherine Colarelli Beatty, and David L. Dinwoodie draw from the Center for Creative Leadership's (CCL) acclaimed Leading Strategically program to offer executives and managers a comprehensive approach to strategic leadership that reaches leaders at all levels of organizations. This thoroughly revised edition concentrates on practical tools for producing impact right away. The authors place special emphasis on three essential strategic components: discovering and prioritizing strategic drivers, which determine sustainability and competitiveness; leadership strategy, which ignites the connections between people critical to enacting the business strategy; and how to foster the individual and organizational learning that is foundational to sustained performance. The authors and other leadership development professionals have used the distinctive and systematic approach described in this book with great success in CCL's Leading Strategically program. The second edition also contains improved self-assessments that help to align the book's lessons learned with the program's current practices. Readers will find fresh suggestions about developing the individual, team, and organizational skills needed for institutions to become more adaptable, flexible, and resilient. These are critical strategic attributes in a time of ever more rapid change, greater uncertainty, and globalization.

Develop the qualities of strategic leadership and become an active contributor to the short- and long-term success of your organization Today's organizations face two daunting challenges: 1. How to create new sources of competitive advantage to sustain long-term growth, and 2. How to engage leaders at every level of the organization so that they are more proactive and forward-looking in their area of responsibility. The Art of Strategic Leadership uses a unique approach to examine what it means to be a strategic leader. Instead of focusing on the skills, behaviors, and tools found in typical books on strategic leadership, the authors shed light on the attributes and qualities necessary to lead strategic change and help transform a business. Strategic leadership is what modern leadership is all about. Organizations expect leaders to anticipate and be proactive more than ever before. In this book, the authors draw on their vast experience working directly with leaders at all levels and use an intriguing narrative to explain this inside-out approach to understanding strategic leadership. The narrative follows the journey of how one manager discovered these critically important qualities. You will experience first-hand how these values and attributes manifest in the lives of realistic leaders; how they orchestrate long-term strategic change needed for the organization to compete and survive and actively shape the future while delivering short-term results. The Art of Strategic Leadership provides the content that will help you informally assess and reflect on your own strategic leadership qualities—those that are strengths and those that indicate areas you need to develop. It will guide you as you incorporate these values and qualities into your own leadership style and become a more effective catalyst for change. This book will help you in the following ways: Develop a more proactive, forward-thinking approach to leadership Approach strategy from both short- and long-term perspectives Adopt the core values and principles of a strategic leader Model the qualities exhibited by powerful leaders Strategic leaders serve as powerful examples to others in the organization. Their qualities and traits spread rapidly to those around them, empowering people at every level to take a more active role in meeting the demands of the future. The Art of Strategic Leadership will help you deepen and broaden your understanding of the core qualities of strategic leadership, leaving you better equipped to lead yourself and your team to a better place and create greater value for customers, owners, and employees.

“If you've ever been told to ‘be more strategic’ and wondered how to do it, this is the book for you.” —Marshall Goldsmith, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There Finalist, Business/Careers category, 2018 Best Book Awards sponsored by American Book Fest Strong leaders are those who successfully navigate a great shift: from tactical doer to strategic leader. Regardless of your industry, line of business, or sector, your organization desperately needs strategic leaders—those who are tuned in to the needs of the business, understand how their actions impact corporate objectives, and use data to make smart decisions. Whether leading a department or running a company, a strategic leader propels business performance. Stephen R. Covey famously portrayed a strategic leader as one who was able to climb a tree and tell everyone they were laboring in the wrong jungle. This book lets you start out on the jungle floor and build a ladder to give you that strategic view over the tops of the trees. You’ll learn how to:Show up strategicSet meaningful directionLeverage stakeholdersAchieve successMake a difference in the areas that matter You’ll learn from the personal career journeys of two authors who have taken very different career paths, yet come together to create a proven approach to understanding the big picture of what your organization is trying to accomplish, setting measurable goals, making smart decisions, and continually getting better at what you’re doing.

In today’s organizations, it is no longer the CEO who acts as the sole strategic leader. From single individuals to larger teams and networks, leaders at all levels are infiltrating the formal organizational structure and making strategic leadership an increasingly complex endeavor. In Strategic Leadership for Turbulent Times, Kriger and Zhovtobryukh shrewdly describe the true experiences of what employees encounter as internal and external environments evolve, and how to uphold the personal and organizational values which affect both human and social capital. They examine how leadership strategies are used in real situations and highlight the importance of managerial wisdom for sustainable growth. Finally, they offer advice for strategic leaders on leading effectively in highly turbulent economic, social, technological, and multicultural times.