PUB 538: STRATEGIC
LEADERSHIP
TOPIC 4: Leadership Strategy
By Massoi, Lucy [PhD]
June, 2022
Introduction
● Organizations depend upon capable leadership to guide them
through unprecedented changes.
● Yet, there is ample scholarly evidence that even some of the
best and most venerable organizations are failing to adapt to
change, implement their strategic plans successfully or
prepare for a more uncertain future.
● Why?
● Many factors play a role to such a situation , but leadership
and leadership strategy deployed by leaders matters !
● What do we understand by a leadership strategy ?
What Leadership strategy mean?
● In order to understand what leadership strategy[ies] mean, we first have to
be clear about what we mean by leadership.
○ leadership begins with individuals in leadership positions…
○ the ability of an organization to accomplish its goals… does not depend
solely on the force of will of a single great leader, or even upon the
effectiveness of the organization’s chain of command
○ leadership is greater than the individual leader has been referred to [as
interdependent, boundaryless, collective or connected leadership].
What is
Leadership
“ Leadership “
is influence
nothing
more, nothing
less.
John C Maxwell
Definition of
Leadership
What is Leadership Leadership is the process of influencing people
and providing an environment for them to achieve
team or organizational objectives.
Qualities of
a Good
Leader
01 Shared Vision 02 Lead Change
03 Inspire People 04 Honest 05 Set Example
Empower People Forward Looking Competent
06 07 08
Leadership strategy
● A leadership strategy is a map that aligns investments in leadership
development with the strategy, goals, and aspirations of the business.
○ explains how many leaders organization needs, of what kind, where,
with what skills, and behaving in what fashion individually and
collectively to achieve the total success organization seeks.
● Outlines a plan for finding leaders [sourcing], aligning them with the goals of
the business , developing and rewarding leaders
○ Competence needs required ,
○ sourcing ,
○ aligning leaders,
○ developing leaders and
○ rewarding leaders
Leadership strategy – competency needs
Leadership strategy – competency needs
Leadership strategy – sourcing leaders
Make / buy mix
Ration of internal/ external hires
Success profiles develop for critical job positions
Assess internal external candidate for job fit
Succession planning
Commitment to succession planning
Define how performance, potential, and talent
Train all leaders
Onboarding leaders
Mentoring
Share strengths as identified in hiring/ promotion process
Identify experience, knowledge and skills gaps
Leadership strategy – aligning leaders
Performance management
Aggressive goals
Measure both ‘the what’ and ‘the How’
Engaging leaders
Actively monitored
Workforce engagement survey
Checkpoint360 leadership survey
Executive Coaching
Provide external coaches
Transitioning
Performance acceleration
Derailment factors
Leadership strategy – Developing
leaders
Assignment – based development
job assignment primary method for development
Internal mentors and coaches
High potential development
High share of development resources
Group activities, exposure to senior team and board
Review performance on semi-annual basis
Measure leadership growth with checkpoint360
Executive development
Voice of customer [external and internal ]
Communicating a clear vision, WIIFM
Enterprise business acumen
Leadership strategy – Rewarding leaders
Base pay
Setting the XX% as goal for base pay
High potential employee pay at XX% plus XX%
Internal mentors and coaches
Annual incentive
Providing up to the XX percentile range of annual incentives, strongly differentiate between
median and high performers in distributing rewards
Long term incentives
Combination of performance- vesting incentives for consistent leadership results and
behaviors
Target the XX percentile for those awards, strongly differentiate between median and high
performers
Components of a leadership strategy
Leadership strategies are channels between business strategy
and leadership development strategy
What to consider when creating a
leadership strategy?
what to consider when creating a Leadership Strategy
1. Quantity of leaders
○ How many leaders do we need factoring in the growth needs and projected
turnover [ when, where and at what level? ]
2. Quality of desired leaders
○ Characteristics [ individual and overall ] leaders should posses when selected or
retained
■ Demographic characteristics [ age, sex/ gender, culture/ origin, education and
experience
■ Internal promotions versus external hires
■ Diversity, targeted diversity
● Level
3. Skills and behavior
○ The specific skills, behaviours, knowledge, competencies or abilities
leaders need by function, level, location or unit to implement the
business strategy
■ Generic behavioural competencies that apply to all leaders in the
organization
■ Specific behavioural competencies by level or function
■ Generic skills and knowledge required by all leaders in the
organization
■ Skills or knowledge and capabilities required by level or function
and location
■ Language capabilities - proficiency to speak, write and read
4. Collective Capabilities: capabilities required of leaders when acting together/ across
boundaries
o Providing direction, demonstrating alignment and generating commitment as a collective leadership team
o Solving problems or making improvements efficiently and effectively that require collaboration across
internal or external boundaries
o Engaging employees in decision making and to gain their active support in implementing planned cross-
functional actions
o Jointly formulating strategies and executing them in a coordinated fashion
o Implementing successful innovation requiring cross-functional collaboration
o Adapting to change in a cohesive and coherent manner
o Working together to grow the business in new markets
o Ensuring compliance/transparency requiring a consistent set of values, beliefs and actions across the
enterprise
o Being responsive to customers in ways that demand cross-unit coordination
o Developing talent on behalf of the enterprise, rather than for individual units
5. Leadership Culture
○ key attributes of the culture created by leaders through the way in which they
lead
■ Degree of dependence , independence or interdependence among leaders
■ Key values reinforced through the collective behaviour and actions of leaders
– integrity, authenticity, humility, wisdom, making a difference etc.
■ The leadership style exhibited by the majority of leaders (control-oriented,
laissez faire, participative, pace setting, coaching etc. )
■ The leadership practices that are both important and shared across the
enterprise – (engaging employees, accepting responsibility, embracing
opportunities to make improvements, being customer focused, empowering
others, respecting others etc. )
How to conduct the analysis : Methods
Steps in creating and implementing the leadership
strategy in an organization
1. Start With Your Leadership Drivers
● The first step in developing a leadership strategy is to
determine your organization’s key leadership drivers
1. Business strategy
o Analysis of the required current and future leadership capabilities
o Analysis of required current and future leadership culture
2. Leadership development strategy
3. Strategic execution
■ Business results
■ Leadership culture
■ Benchmarking strength
4. Talent
o Talent acquisition
o Talent sustainability
o Leadership practices
● You can’t create a leadership strategy that will be effective without this first critical step
How to Create a Leadership Strategy…
2. Identify Leadership Strategy Implications
○ Once you’ve determined the key drivers, leadership strategy implications can be identified. For example, if
becoming more innovative is a key driver for your organization, then the leadership strategy implications may be as follows:
● Greater interdependence among leadership to create more effective collaboration across functions in
bringing new products to market.
● A need to increase leadership involvement across functions in gathering consumer insights and
translating these into profitable ideas for new products.
● Anticipating capital, space, and talent implications of rapidly expanding product portfolio.
● A need for cultural change to create a spirit of innovation versus a culture of risk aversion.
NB:
• In reality, the leadership strategy implications would be much more specific, reflecting the actual
opportunities and issues surrounding the key drivers.
• The key drivers and their associated business strategies should have clear implications for what leaders
must do well in order for the organization to succeed
Leadership strategy & Talent sustainability strategy
Conclusion
● Developing a leadership strategy needed to implement the
business strategy requires careful planning, dedicated
effort, and commitment from your organization.
● But by going through the leadership strategy development
process, you open the door for more targeted, effective
leadership development — and an organizational culture
capable of achieving strategic success.
