Adair - Strategic Leadership: How to Think and Plan Strategically and Provide Direction

Strategic
Leadership

How to think and plan
strategically and provide direction

JOHN ADAIR

Publishers note

Every possible effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this book is accurate at the time of going to press, and the publishers and authors cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions, however caused. No responsibility for loss or damage occasioned to any person acting, or refraining from action, as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by the editor, the publisher or the author.

First published in Great Britain and the United States in 2010 by Kogan Page Limited

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licences issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned addresses:

John Adair, 2010

The right of John Adair to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ISBN 978 0 7494 6203 1

E-ISBN 978 0 7494 6204 8

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Adair, John Eric, 1934

Strategic leadership : how to think and plan strategically and provide direction / John Adair. 1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-7494-6203-1 ISBN 978-0-7494-6204-8 1. Leadership. 2. Strategy. I. Title.

HD57.7.A2756 2010

658.4092dc22

2010017895

Typeset and eBook by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong

Printed and bound in India by Replika Press Pvt Ltd

CONTENTS

John Adair is now widely regarded as the worlds leading authority on leadership and leadership development. The author of 30 books on the subject, he has been named as one of the 40 people worldwide who have contributed most to the development of management thought and practice.

Educated at St Pauls School, John Adair has enjoyed a varied and colourful career. He served as adjutant in a Bedouin regiment in the Arab Legion, worked as a deckhand on an Arctic trawler and had a spell as an orderly in a hospital operating theatre. After Cambridge he became Senior Lecturer in Military History and Leadership Training Adviser at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, before becoming the first Director of Studies at St Georges House in Windsor Castle and then Associate Director of the Industrial Society. Later he became the worlds first Professor in Leadership Studies at the University of Surrey. He also helped to found Europes first Centre for Leadership Studies at the University of Exeter.

John Adair is currently the United Nations Chair of Strategic Leadership based on the United Nations Staff College in Turin. His recent books, published by Kogan Page, include Not Bosses But Leaders , The Inspirational Leader and How to Grow Leaders .

Those having torches will pass them on to others.

Plato (429347 BC)

Welcome to this book. I hope you will find here a clear introduction to your role as a strategic leader what you are being paid to do. The emphasis of the book is not on a methodology. Its focus is on encouraging you to ask the right questions; to look beyond what you think you know; to focus on tomorrow rather than yesterday.

A strategic leader is essentially the leader of an organization. An effective strategic leader is one who delivers the goods in terms of what an organization naturally expects from its leadership in times of change.

As you will have gathered by now, this book is written primarily for those who are about to become strategic leaders or who aspire to be in that role. You may, of course, already be head of an organization, or know that you are next in line for such a role, or you may simply be aware that the path of your vocation is leading you in that direction.

That doesnt exhaust the list of those who can read this book with profit. In large organizations there is or should be a strategic leadership team working under the conductors baton of the head person. Obviously the more each member knows of the principles and practice of strategic leadership the better they can support and complement the contribution of their leader.

Do not assume, however, that this book only applies to those who work in large or medium-sized organizations. The body of knowledge and ideas it contains, especially the parts relating to strategic thinking, is equally relevant to those in charge of small organizations, and indeed to those like myself who work in unstructured fields. As the Roman playwright Plautus said, Ergomet sum mihi imperator I am myself my own commander. Today each of us has to be our own strategic leader.

Leading the way whether for an organization or for yourself is never easy. I hope that this book equips you for the challenge and that you enjoy reading it too.

The book is largely self-explanatory. Part One maps and explores the sources and fundamentals of the role of strategic leadership. Part Two moves on to what you have to do today to be effective in the role, focusing on the seven generic functions that make up the role of a strategic leader.

The summary of key points at the end of each chapter is designed as a concise aide-mmoire for revision purposes, but occasionally I throw in a new idea just to see if you are still awake! I have included some exercises for this book is essentially practical and I suggest that you ask yourself questions as you go along in order to relate what I am saying to your own situation. The more that you put into the reading of the book, the more you will get the best out of it.

To get the most out of a book like this one, however, you do need a wide span of relevance . By that I mean that we naturally look for examples or case studies in our own field, such as business or education, and think that these ones only are relevant to our situation. But you should be able to see relevance to your situation in the examples of, say, an orchestral conductor or a Greek general. It is the same principle, incidentally, that lies behind creative thinking: the sparks of meaning jump between two or more apparently unconnected things to produce new ideas. It is also fun to think like this.

For there is an underlying unity in strategic leadership, whatever field you are in and however structured or unstructured your work in it may be. Walter Bagehot, a 19th-century banker, economist and journalist famous for his insights into economics and political questions, understood this well:

The summits of the various kinds of business are, like the tops of mountains, much more alike than the parts below the bare principles are much the same; it is only the rich variegated details of the lower strata that so contrast with one another.

But it needs travelling to know that the summits are the same. Those who live on one mountain believe that their mountain is wholly unlike all others.

When you continue your observation of effective strategic leaders in organizations, encouraged I hope by these pages, you will be increasingly aware of how much they have in common. Therefore you can draw lessons and insights from many sources in order to grow as a strategic leader. And something of the spirit of leadership which is in the best of them the torches they bear will light a torch in your spirit that will burn for the rest of your life.