Aspects of Direct and Organization Leadership - Essay Example

From the above definition or explanation, real strategic leadership, therefore, means taking responsibility for the future but not forgetting what is happening today. It involves creativity, planning, and intuition to help reach desired and set goals. This form of leadership contains aspects of direct and organization leadership but the difference lies in the fact that strategic leadership affects more people commits more resources and have wide-ranging consequences in both space and time. Thus making it of prime importance when it comes to the success of businesses or organizations.

Per Christensen in one of his books on strategic leadership reveals some reasons why any enterprise in the world should practice this form of leadership. The very first is that strategic leadership encourages and promotes feedback. He explains strategically led companies depend on the free flow of information and opinion and given the fact that a company is a complex, self-organizing and self-correcting system, any breach in feedback loops will be a threat to the company and this will affect growth.

In other words communication, free discussions between all levels within and without the organization is a necessity. This will encourage integrity, identity, and focus. Secondly, strategic leadership encourages and promotes loyalty and prevents powers to struggle. According to Christensen man is a territorial and hierarchical being. He defines his territory, defends it and esteems it above all. When he finds himself in a context where a common strategy is not defined and communicated to him, he will struggle to protect his personal interests at the expense of the company.

The common strategy, therefore, must be defined and communicated to the entire staff so as to motivate them to perform and fight for the interest of the company against competitors. He goes further to say strategic leadership is important for organizations and businesses because it defines processes and patterns. In the absence of this power struggles, bureaucracy, demotivation and wasted time could result. The tasks and duties of each and every person must be defined clearly to avoid clashes and conflicts.

This is very common in organizations and businesses where management is not decentralized. There exist no man who has a mastery of everything as such competent and responsible people should be given clearly defined tasks. In conclusion, strategic leadership is not only about providing a sense of direction but equally helping leaders build ownership and alignment within their workgroups to implement change. It is therefore very important for businesses and organizations with prospects.