Achieving and maintaining strategic competitiveness in the 21st century

Achieving and maintaining strategic competitiveness in the 21st century: The role of strategic leadership.

Executive overview mentions (literally) “The purpose of this paper is to describe six components of effective strategic leadership”.

By a summary, I’ll list the key points for each title, and emphasize those six components. These components are titles underlined in this summary.

The paperstart with the follow reference: “It is possible - and fruitful – to identify major events that have already happened, irrevocably, and that will have predictable effects in the next decade or two. It is possible, in other words, to identify and prepare for the future that has already happened” This was said by Peter Drucker.

The global economy.
The incredible breadth and depth of the globaleconomy’s effects are shown by the suggestion that in the 21st century, nation-states will lose their sovereignty, technology may replace labor, and corporations may come to resemble amoebas - collections of workers that are subdivided into dynamic, ever-changing teams to competitively exploit the firm’s unique resources, capabilities and core competencies.

The global economy may create a need forindividual citizens to maintain separate loyalties – one to their own unique traditions and institutions, the other to the characteristics of a rapidly evolving international culture.

The new competitive landscape

Certain conditions of the new competitive landscape, including the expectation that the word’s economy will grow substantially during the first 20 years of the next century, also createopportunities for companies to improve their financial performance.

These opportunities surface primarily because of the disequilibrium that is created by continuous changes (especially technological changes) in the states of knowledge that are a part of a competitive environment.

Strategic leadership
The great leader view of strategic leadership

Strategic leadership theory holds thatcompanies are reflections of their to managers, and, in particular, of the chief executive officers, and that “… the specific knowledge, experience, values, and preferences of top managements are reflected not only in their decisions, but in their assessments of decision situations.”

Particularly when these choices resulted in financial success for the company, the key strategic leader was recognizedwidely as the “corporate Hercules”.

Insightful top managers recognize that it is impossible for them to have all of the answers, are willing to learn along with others, and understand that the uncertainty created by global economy affects people at the top as well as those lower down in the organization.

The great groups vies of strategic leadership

In an organizational community, strategicleadership is distributed among diverse individuals who share the responsibility to create a viable future for their firm.

As Luciano De Crescenzo noted: “We are all angels with only one wing, we can only fly while embracing each other”.

Top manager who facilitate the development of great groups have shifted the locus od responsibility of form adaptive solutions to issues from themselves to theorganization’s full citizenry.

As knowledge sharing and development entities, great groups have several characteristics. First, members of great groups have accepted their responsibility for firm outcomes. Second, great groups seek to learn from multiples parties, including contractors, suppliers, partners, and customers. Third, great groups concerns information and knowledge. The last is great groupsis their maintenance of records of individuals’ knowledge stocks.

The global economy, more than any other factor, has creates the need for the top management team to effectively exercise strategic leadership in organizations.

Great leaders are able to share responsibility for leading and managing business units, sharing information and ideas widely with others and seeking mutual influence...