Business – Leadership
Critical writing: Creating Vision and Strategic Direction; Leading Change
The two articles which we would discuss here are: (1) Leadership Vision and Strategic Direction; published by the Quality Management Forum, Vol-30 and (2) Mission, Vision, Values by Jane Logan. In the first phase or section of this assignment we would take the discussion towards understanding the thoughts of the writer and in the next section we would have critique’s view on it.
We begin with ‘Leadership Vision and Strategic Direction’. In this article, Don Bracken has focused on Leadership. He begins with a very simply explanation of leadership – “Creating a compelling vision and developing a strategy to achieve it, is one of leadership’s primary functions.” Very simply he encompasses the role and responsibility of a leader by terming it as “creating a compelling vision”. The leader has to be one whose vision is realistic and achievable. He who can show the way and draw a roadmap to achieve the goal is a leader. Using the term ‘compelling vision’ Don is indicating that he is also the possessor of the ability to align every team member to the goal and the vision of the company. Don in this article focuses on the role a leader in creating and envisaging the company’s future and how he formulates the strategies.
In the article, Don touches upon the points; Strategic leadership, Leadership vision, Mission statement, Strategy formulation, Strategy in action and finally discussing on the Leader’s contribution in achieving the vision. He very effectively explains how a leader has a vision and a dream for the next five or ten years for the organization, knowing that it is complex to anticipate the future in an ever changing world. The organization’s leadership has to strategically address the vision of the organization, consider the external and internal business environment. Their vision must inspire and motivate all employees and team members.
In his note Don has explained the strategic vision creation as a conjunction of Mintzberg et al. (1998) two primary tensions; Seeing Ahead Versus Seeing Behind and Seeing Above Versus Seeing Below. Here, Don re-addresses the points as ‘Vision links the present to the future’, ‘Vision energizes people and garners Commitment’, ‘Vision gives meaning to work’, ‘Vision establishes a standard of Excellence’. His emphasizes more on the vision of the organizations which every employee must follow with enthusiasm and commitment in guidance of a leader. In this article he does not touch upon the creative aspect of involving the employees in reaching the goal set in the vision of the organization. He quotes Max DePree, author and chairman and CEO of Herman Miller, Inc. who writes, “Leadership is an art, something to be learned over time, not simply by reading books. Leadership is more tribal than scientific, more a weaving of relationships than an amassing of information,” the current day’s aspect or leadership training in a manner is ruled out here.
He moves on to write on the strategies followed by leaders to formulate their way forward to achieve the vision and mission of the organization. A leader must strategize such that the vision, mission and goal of the organizations are translated into action. This he terms as ‘strategic management’. In order to develop company strategies a leader must focus on three qualities: Core Competencies, Developing Synergy and Creating Value for its customers. But this is not sufficient. The leader has to ensure the implementations of the strategies as well, which is also most difficult and most important part. Don writes, “Leaders need to ensure the new strategy is resourced properly, understood and implemented, and people are motivated to adopt the new strategy”. All this happens only when a leader is also involved in the actions – he who can lead the change.
With this now we move on the next article ‘Leading Change: Why transformation efforts fail’ by Jhon P Kotter, a Harvard Business Review. Here in this Harvard Business Review John states, “The most general lesson to be learned from the more successful cases is that the change process goes through a series of phase that in total usually requires a considerable length of time. Skipping steps creates only the illusion of speed but never produces the satisfying result.” John with this begins elaborating on the critical mistakes which have a devastating impact. He demarcates eight steps an organization must follow for a successful transformation.
- Establishing a sense of urgency by examining market and competition, identifying and discussing crises, and major opportunity.
- Forming a powerful guiding coalition, by assembling a group of employees and a leader, with enough power to lead the change effort.
- Creating a vision to help direct the change effort and developing strategies for achieving that vision.
- Communicating the vision of the organizations by using every possible means and medium.
- Empowering others to act on the Vision and to get rid of obstacles to change by encouraging risk taking and bringing in none traditional ideas.
- Planning for are creating short term Wins, to enable improvement.
- Consolidating improvements and producing still more changes, using increasing credibility to change a system.
- Institutionalizing a new approach by articulating the connection between the corporate success and a new change.
In this paper the Harvard business review has touched upon all important points that an organizations must keep in mind while implementing the change. The paper also clearly demarcates what the leaders of that organization must follow to manage the change or transformation by leading the group. John emphasizes that merely drawing the plan for the change is not sufficient. The leader has to empower the people down the line to use their caliber and capabilities to improve the change process. Basically, by giving the team members the option and ability to enact on the changes with an open mind along with the creative instincts in action, is one of the important factors for the success of the change.
In this paper as a critique I personally feel that the writer, John has adequately included all important and relevant points for a leader to remember during their attempt to bring about the change or the transformation in the organization. It touches every aspect of the organization to ensure that the change lead by the leader is a successful endeavor by them. I have, in fact personally taken an enormous amount of learning from this paper.
Bibliography
Brecken, Don. "Leadership Vision and Strategic Direction." Special issue : Focus on Leadership 1 November 2004.
Kotter, John P. "Leading Change : Why Transformation Efforts Fail." Haward Business Review (reprint) March - April 1995.
Mintzberg, H., Ahlstrand, B., & Lampel, J. "Strategy safari: A guided tour through the wilds of strategic management." New York: Free Press, 1998.
