Link Between Strategic Management and Leadership

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The purpose of the study was to investigate the link between strategic management and leadership. The findings clearly suggest that they do have many things in common and that they interlinked with some small dispute. Leadership is the bridge between strategic management and people. It’s because of leadership that the organization lay out their desired jobs and objectives to achieve. Management is responsible for people and the resources in a unit according to the rules or values that have already been set while the leaders set a way for the citizenry in the group. Some of the elements that managers and leaders have in common is that they both want to achieve an organization’s goal. This intended that they want what is best for the organization. They showed particular strengths in carrying out their task of the organization, suggesting that both leaders and manager go side-by-side. Both involve deciding what needs to be done by creating a network of people and build relationships that can accomplish a given task and ensure that people get the job done. One reason for this may be that managers and leaders want to get the job done in a specific time frame. This supports and adds to the findings of Swansburg, and Swansburg (2002), who showed similar results. Management and leadership also work as a complete action system. Another reason for this may be that each has their own distinctive purpose to improve organizational efficiency. This supports findings of Kotter (2008). It also seems to be the case that leaders and managers share a sense of missionary work or design that transcends the avoidance of authenticity and achievement of a vision. In order to achieve this vision both managers and leaders use motivation as a method to influence people in getting the job done. Motivation can be in the sense of reward, promotion or even an increase in salary. They must also possess good decision making skills in order to be efficient and make effective decisions for the growth of the business. Another reason for the similarities that they both share may be that organization need both leadership quality and management functions to be efficient at what they do. This supports and adds to the findings of Kotter (2008) and Brindley and Buckley (2004), who showed similar results for effective management and leadership. This study has taken a step in the direction of justifying the inclusion of strategic management and leadership in organizations. It did however look at a narrow range of strategic leadership and management in comparison. They have similar traits and functions, but they also have many differences. For example, leader inspires and manager work by the book. Because leadership mainly involves the ability to guide or to direct people towards a predetermined goal, much of the accomplishment expected of a good leader or manager is their ability to navigate relationships successfully. This can involve a host of many different skill sets. For example, persuading people to your point of view without aggressive behaviour or give instruction and reasonably expect them to follow. The approach outlined in this study should be replicated in other studies in order to be able to recommend the need for both managers and leader in organizations. The reason for this is because there is a much broader view on this thesis by many incredible researchers and the study has shown that there is no one definition for leadership or management. However, in order for any type of organization to succeed in today’s environment, organizations need both good management and quality leadership. Using both management functions and leadership skills, organization can create a system that motivates employees, does not over, manage, and most importantly create an enthusiastic working environment. An organization requires a balance between leadership and management. They must ensure that there is an abundance of both strength.

According to Barratt and Mottershead (2000) Strategic Management is the cognitive operation of building and maintaining good strategies. But, establishing and defining a strategy is not enough, Zapatos Classicos will have to work out a plan for implementation of that strategy in its true emotional state. Good strategic management plays a fundamental role in approaching business opportunities and challenges for Zapatos Classicos. Management at Zapatos Classicos is focusing on adopting advanced management and leadership strategies in relation with the business environment. Barratt and Mottershead (2000) opined that adopting management and leadership strategies will enable managers at Zapatos Classicos to focus on the reality of the market situation. Moreover, adopting new strategies will help to get the best work out of employees, help the organization increase productivity, efficiency and effectiveness. According to Swansburg, and Swansburg (2002) Motivation strategies can be useful for Zapatos Classicos to motivate employees to work harder and at the highest performance. This can be done through ‘Reward Power’ reward as the epithet implies, rest upon the ability of managers and leaders to give some sort of reward to employees. These rewards can range from monetary or other tangible compensation for employment. At Zapatos Classicos some management and leadership strategies that can be used in alignment with organizational objectives are creating a strategic planning team of both managers and leaders to assist in the achievement of the company’s vision and share the business vision with everyone in the organization. This involvement will get employees and staff committed to achieving the vision (Swansburg, and Swansburg, 2002). Getting people involve in decision making will engage and make employees feel as if they are a part of something (Marcousé, 2008). Subsequently, base of the analysis and discussion the researcher came to the conclusion that Leadership and Strategic management are interlinked with some deviation. In the illustration of strategic management, at Zapatos Classicos we are trying our best to achieve some long term goals and the same is the case with leadership. In both cases Zapatos Classicos should have someone with a wide vision; either it’s a leader or a manager to steer the organization on the right path. The bottom line of all this discussion is beautifully caught by the golden words of Field Marshal Slim that (quoted in Business Management Study Manual), “Leadership is of the spirit, compounded of personality and vision: its practice is an artwork. Management is more a matter of accurate calculation, of statistics, methods, timetable and routine: its practice is a science.” According to Kotter (2008), good leadership and efficient management will always be the winner in Zapatos Classicos because without management good leadership can only satisfy for the time being but not in a long term and effective

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