Leadership Paradigms: Leadership Strategy vs Strategic Leadership

Leadership is the current day buzzword in today’s complex world. Right from family to corporate to sports and even to diplomacy, war and politics the word (leadership) has become an oft quoted cliché. Every day we keep talking about leadership styles, examples, seminars and leadership stories in every sphere of our life. Each one of us in fact wants to become Leaders and desire to lead. And the best part of Leadership is that one can lead from wherever he or she is irrespective of position, portfolio and/ or designations. The moot point therefore is to introspect and reflect on the why and how part of leadership. While the first (why) tries to answer that Leadership is to drive success that each one of us aspire to achieve in life whereas the second part (how) defines about the strategy and course of leadership. Instead of delving in to the much heard debate whether “Leaders are born or made” let us think how leaders could steer themselves to success. Strategy plays an important role in making Leaders successful. A leader irrespective of their cast, (or, even caste) creed, position or any other nomenclature, strategizes. It an integral part of the leadership traits and the formulation and deft execution of strategy is in fact determines the quality of leadership/leaders’. The resolving of recent Doklam plateau standoff between India & China, the introduction of Jio services by Reliance, the recent whitewash of Srilanka by the Indian cricket team and the surgical strike Indian Army did across the border are the best examples of  formulating strategy and it’s adept execution.

Now let’s elaborate the point to explore further whether it is Leadership Strategy or Strategic Leadership that made it possible. In order to do that we need to understand the difference between the two to appreciate how it contributes to leadership in terms of style, culture, function, capability, effectiveness and implementation.

The strategic leadership is the micro aspect of the Leadership which is more intrinsic to the leader as an individual, his capability and competency to formulate, translate the organizations’/ individual’s vision, strategy and align the team/followers to the achievement of its business/individual goals. A strategic leader focuses on increasing the efficiency /productivity of self+individual by creating/ and developing an environment which provides transparency, openness and also enables them with adequate resources, leadership commitment and support to achieve the quick wins.  A strategic leader must possess and exhibit not only the strategic skills but also should have other traits like motivation, holistic approach, agility, nimble footing in making decisions, allocating and optimizing resources with consistency and reliability, challenge the existing norms and must innovate to succeed. It is an integral part of strategic leadership process to interwoven both the short term as well as long term vision and mission (of the organization/individual) and put in to tactical plans to implement. Today despite the fact that strategy making is needed at all levels not all are able to do justice to it. Strategic Leaders’ are scarce resources these days which require us to optimally manage them and / or to further develop to make the leadership pipeline possible.

The Leadership Strategy on the other hand talks about the macro aspects of leadership applicable to an organization, institution, society, forums etc. e.g., what is the leadership objective, quality, structures, numbers, pipeline, grooming, retention of talents and the competencies, skill sets they do have to be able to align the organization’s/institutions’ business or other goals to attain the business objectives. The leadership Strategy emanates from the organization’s culture, vision/mission for doing the business and acts as an edifice to steer the organization to success and sustenance. The major elements of a Leadership strategy may be growth, sustain, innovate and diversify which might be exclusive and/or inclusive. The major drivers’ of an organization’s leadership strategy could be its focus areas in business and/or work, organization culture, values and ethics, quality and competency of its leaders/ manpower, organization structure, systems, processes and compliance. It is the leadership strategy which in fact effectively tries to bridge the gap between potential to performance.

It could therefore be observed and construed that despite being the two different facets of leadership paradigm both leadership strategy and strategic leadership are complimentary to each other and both are required to build on the organizational as well as individual leadership to confront various internal and external risks, challenges, conventions, aspirations to attain  performance excellence.