Leading Effectively e-Newsletter - August 2002 Issue

Are You a Strategic Leader?

Becoming a strategic leader requires much more than an understanding of business practices and principles. Effective strategic leaders have a certain mindset and a range of skills that allow them to think, act and influence others in ways that enhance their organizations' sustainable competitive advantage. Based on the Center for Creative Leadership's research and experience with leaders in our Developing the Strategic Leader program, this e-Newsletter looks at the leadership dynamic of setting and achieving your organization's long-term goals.

Find more information about CCL's Developing the Strategic Leader program, or contact the Center's Client Services group at 336.545.2810.

Strategic Leadership: What Makes It Different?
"Isn't all leadership strategic?" you ask. Not so, according to Center for Creative Leadership faculty member Kate Beatty and her colleagues. "While strategic leadership includes the traditional definitions of leadership that emphasize social and interpersonal elements, the role of a strategic leader requires an additional set of skills and perspectives," she says.

What is Strategic Leadership?
Leaders have many "tools" available to them to achieve their goals. They create vision, craft a strategy, implement financial processes, guide product and service development, maintain a market focus, attend to organizational culture, and more. But what makes these actions strategic is when they are focused on differentiating the organization from its competitors in ways that are sustainable in the long run.

Who is a Strategic Leader?
Without a doubt, CEOs, presidents and officers of an organization have strategic leadership responsibilities. But increasingly, people at multiple levels have a major role to play when it comes to sustaining an organization's long-term competitive advantage.

How Do Leaders Lead Strategically?
Grasping the importance of strategic leadership is one thing, but understanding how to lead strategically is another matter altogether. Fundamentally, it is the combination of the leader's attention to the processes of strategic thinking, acting and influencing.

Developing the Strategic Leader: A Personal View
When it comes down to it, the leadership journey is a very personal one. The experiences, motivations and interests of leaders are never separated from the actions of leadership. Following are the perspectives of two leaders -- Bernard Curtis, executive director of learning & development, AT&T Broadband, and Doug Hamlin, president, Versatrans Solutions Inc. -- who chose to take the Center's Developing the Strategic Leader program as the next step on their leadership path.

As part of your development toward becoming a strategic leader, be sure to fine-tune your ability to lead high-performance teams through our Leadership and High-Performance Teams program.