Leadership in Strategic Management

1. Leadership in Strategic Management Preparatory thoughts and Ideas from Collins’ Good to Great

2. Leadership is complex • Many researchers have tried to identify traits of good leaders, but they found many exceptions to every rule • Only one principle seems to have survived:Good leaders are “behaviorally complex” • A good leader varies his/her behavior a lotdepending on the situation

3. But authors like Hill & Jones still list characteristics of good leaders… • … and their list can be helpful • Vision, eloquence, and consistency • Commitment to their vision and business model demonstrated with words and actions • Being well-informed • Willingness to delegate and empower • Astute use of power • Don’t memorize these. They won’t be on the test • But a list like this provides a rough, common sense picture of what leaders have to do

4. One takeaway: While strategic management texts deal mostly with self-interest-oriented thinking, good leaders use mammalian elements of brain

5. To think about leadership, look at some real leaders • Ways of Good-to-Great leaders won’t work everywhere, but they give a better sense of what great leaders can be than any list

6. The Good-to-Great Research • Studied 11 companies that had been ordinary performers, then at some point turned into superior performers • Produced returns 3x the stock market average for 15 years Kimberley-Clark (Huggies), Gillette, Nucor, Walgreen’s, Abbot Labs, Kroger, Wells Fargo, etc. • Compared them with similar companies that didn’t transform

7. Companies that achieve the transformation Collins seeks are likely to have been ordinary performers inboring industries • William McKnight of 3M may have been a “Level 5 Leader” • Most high-tech CEOs (e.g., Steve Jobs) are not • Collins, unfortunately, tries to tell everybody to follow the principles he found – that’s wrong

8. Level-5 leadership is how to lead a slow-moving firm to major growth • Use the Good-to-Great findings as one pictureof what a leader can be

9. Collins’ ‘Level 5 Leader’ addresses long-term problems • A ‘paradoxical blend’ of • personal humility • intense professional will • Ambition for the company • But refuses to take credit for the success • Deep resolve to ‘do what needs to be done’