I just finished writing an essay for class on the role of leadership in strategy. Here is a summary of what I learned after doing the research and writing the essay:
1. There are many different types of leaders and the effective ones have the ability to assess their surroundings and develop a vision that fits their unique circumstances taking the staff, organizational structure, internal and external environments into consideration and motivating all the staff members and subgroups to achieve that organizational vision.
2. Ineffective leaders fail to accurately assess their surrounding and they attempt to craft visions and strategies that are not possible to achieve with the current resources. This incongruence leads to frustration, poor performance and mistrust.
3. Effective leaders change their interactions with their followers as the situation calls for. If a task is closed, routine and there is limited time and then the leader is more autocratic. If the task is open, non-routine and there is more time the leader is more democratic.
4. Followers in general prefer their leaders to be transformative and different followers of separate groups prefer social support, democratic decision making or autocratic decision making
5. Transformational leaders are most effective in navigating an organization through a change or a period of upheaval. Once the objectives have been met and the organization is stable, then the leader must change their style toward more transactional in order to maintain their current course. Constant organizational change is not an effective long term strategy.
6. Lassiez-faire leaders are ineffective. Their followers do not trust them and do not understand what their role is.
7. Communication is important. Leaders need to be able to articulate what their expectations are, what the steps are to achieve the organizational strategy, what objectives they are going to use to evaluate their success and how each person can contribute to the overall success.
8. When there is a change in leadership, the organizational will experience an initial decrease in performance until the new leader can change the strategy and motivate the members to perform for will. The longer a leader is in their role, the more successful the organizational (in general).
It is clear that every situation is different and this is why it is so hard to identify key features of successful leaders, and why some leaders experience success in one role, but failure in another. It takes constant monitoring of the overall circumstances to achieve success and every change demands a different approach. Successful leaders have the ability to either change the situation to their benefit, or choose situations that best utilize their skill set.
