Putting leadership back into strategy - Essay Example

The major thrust of Montgomery’s argument is that strategy must shape and guide organizational direction and policy over the long term, but this requires effective leadership from the CEO of an organization. The infusion of economics into the study of strategy has undoubtedly helped to consolidate its underpinnings, but the perception that strategy is nothing more than an analytical problem to be solved has relegated it to the status of a game plan where the leadership role is not being accorded the importance that it deserves.

The author contends that the move away from strategic planning for the long term and the failure to accord leadership the importance it deserves, have in fact caused strategy to lose its breadth and stature, while it may have gained depth. According to Kotler strategy is the “glue that aims to build and deliver a consistent and distinctive value proposition” to an organization’s target market.2 He also points out that Porter has clearly indicated that operational excellence would not necessarily be equivalent to a strategy, because it would only constitute the same race their competitors are running.

Targeting specific groups of customers and delivering different benefits would however, constitute strategy and an organization would be practising strategic positioning in following such a plan. The word “positioning” was first used to refer to the manner in which products were placed in stores, i.e, placing them at eye level for example. But they came to be associated with strategy when Al Ries and Jack Trout who first coined the term, stated: “Positioning is not what you do to a product.

Positioning is what you do to the mind of a prospect.”3 Strategic positioning therefore includes the positioning of an organization in the future while also taking into account the projected changes in the