MONASH
BUSINESS
SCHOOL
MGF5928: Strategic Leadership
Week 1: An introduction to strategic leadership
MONASH
BUSINESS
SCHOOL
2
▪ Strategic leadership “focuses on the executives who have
overall responsibility for an organization – their
characteristics, what they do, how they do it, and
particularly, how they affect organizational outcomes”.
(Finkelstein, Hambrick and Cannella, 2009, p.4)
▪ Subjects of strategic leadership: individuals (CEOs and
general managers), groups (top management teams),
governance bodies (board of directors)
The study of top executives
MONASH
BUSINESS
SCHOOL
3
• Making decisions
• Shaping the business
• Represent the organisation
Role
• UncertaintyEnvironment
• Experiences
• Values
• Personalities and other human attributes
Interpretation
Strategic leaders
MONASH
BUSINESS
SCHOOL
4
▪ Strategic leaders are responsible for overall management
of an organisation with substantive decision-making roles
▪ Hence, strategic leadership goes beyond the study of
personal attributes of a leader
▪ It focuses on “why executives make the strategic choices
they do”
Beyond Leadership
MONASH
BUSINESS
SCHOOL
5
CEO
Unit
Heads
TMT
Board of
Directors
Examples of strategic leaders
MONASH
BUSINESS
SCHOOL
6
Interpersonal
Figurehead
Leader
Liaison
Informational
Monitor
Disseminator
Spokesperson
Decisional
Entrepreneur
Disturbance
Handler
Resource
Allocator
Negotiator
What do top executives do?
Mintzberg’s
Executive Roles
MONASH
BUSINESS
SCHOOL
7
External and
internal activities
Strategy
formulation,
implementation
and context
creation
Substance and
symbols
Basic dimensions of top executive roles
MONASH
BUSINESS
SCHOOL
8
▪ Concept of executive discretion
– “Depending on how much discretion exists, an organization’s
form and fate may lie totally outside the control of its top
managers, completely within their control, or more typically,
somewhere in between”
Do top executives matter for organisational outcome?
MONASH
BUSINESS
SCHOOL
9
Chief
Executive
Discretion
Task
environment
Internal
organisation
Managerial
characteristics
Managerial discretion
MONASH
BUSINESS
SCHOOL
10
▪ Chapters: 1 and 2
– Finkelstein, S., Hambrick, Donald C, & Cannella, Albert A. (2009).
Strategic leadership : Theory and research on executives, top
management teams, and boards (Strategic management series
(Oxford University Press)). New York: Oxford University Press.
Reference

学霸联盟