Strategic Leadership (LE9001Z)

Content

With the constant change in the business environment there is a real need to have a strong strategic leadership to stay the course of change. Many organisations lack strategic intent and therefore are always reactive to the environment and not tactical and therefore are not effective nor are they efficient in their service and product delivery to sustain their long-term future. Strategic leadership is an important key to the success of any organisation’s competitive edge and sustainability in today’s marketplace. This unit will guide students through a series of topics to understand and analyse policies, social issues, emerging market and customer trends as well as other key success factors for their organisations and industry, and utilise their findings in their planning, strategizing and business initiatives. Students will become familiar with various Strategic Leadership theoretical frameworks, models, key concepts and tools to analyse organisational strategies and make suggested improvements and strategic initiatives. Students will learn to discern the appropriate strategic model and concepts that need to be applied in certain circumstance to achieve competitive advantage for the organisation. They will learn how to balance different priorities and multiple perspectives, set vision and tactics in place to achieve that vision with a strategic intention, balancing short-term and long-term needs and objectives, influencing change, making strategic choices and gaining stakeholder buy-in, whilst creating value for the organisation. Module A – Strategic Intent and Strategic Leadership Module B – Strategic Leadership Theories and Practice Module C – Strategic Leadership Models and Frameworks
Module D – Vision, Ideology and the Hedgehog Concept Module E – Analysing Strategies, risks and outcomes Module F – Building Strategies and Stakeholder buy-in

Learning outcomes

Unit sequence

This is a core unit in the Graduate Diploma in Leadership and Master of Leadership

Pedagogy

All learning material including video lectures and practitioner interviews are accessible on the Learning Management System asynchronously. The learning material are divided up in six modules with specific topics in each module. Students will need to attend a weekly webinar on a weeknight to engage with the tutor and discuss the learning material and assessments. The students will also need to attend two intensive days on the second and fourth Saturdays of the Teaching Period that will be run as workshops to discuss the topics and engage with supplementary learning material and practical exercises and scenarios relevant to the topics of the unit.

Indicative Bibliography

• MacDonald, I., Burke, C., & Stewart, K. (2018). Systems leadership: Creating positive organizations 2nd Ed, Routledge.
• Angwin D., Cummings S., & Smith C. (2011), The Strategy Pathfinder, Core Concepts and Micro-Cases, 2nd Ed, Blackwell Pub.
• Bhattacharyya, S.S. and Jha, S. (2018). Strategic Leadership Models and Theories: Indian Perspectives. Emerald Publishing
• Collins, J. (2001). Good to Great: Why some Companies make the Leap … and Others Don’t. Harper Business.
• Collins, J. and Hansen, M.T (2011). Great By Choice. Harper Business.
• Collins, J. and Porras, J.I. (1994). Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. Harper Business.
• Finkelstein, S., Hambrick, D.C. and Cannella, A.A. (2009). Strategic Leadership: Theory and Research on Executives, Top Management Teams, and Boards. Oxford University Press.
• Grant, R, Butler, B, Orr, S & Murray, PA, 2014, Contemporary strategic management: an Australasian perspective, Wiley, Milton, QLD.
• Kim, W.C. and Mauborgne, R.A. (2015). Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant. Harvard Business Publishing
• Thompson, A., Strickland, A., Peteraf. M., and Gamble, J.E. (2015) Crafting and Executing Strategy: The Quest for Competitive Advantage, Concepts and Cases, (20th edition) McGraw Hill.

Assessment