Assignment: Week 23

1)      In your own words and using referenced quotes describe what is meant by the term “strategic leadership".

Strategic leadership is the process of managing, motivating and persuading the employees to communicate the same vision, which could be important tool for creating an organizational structure within a business. It is a process of implementing well defined strategies to share a vision for an organization. This style of leadership is dynamic by nature and requires a high level of commitment and work involvement (Lynch, 2009).

2) Identify two interesting similarities and two differences between the 5 Elements of Successful and Effective Strategic Leadership model and the Transcendent Leadership model.

The similarities between the 5 elements of successful and effective strategic leadership model and the Transcendent leadership model are as follow:

The model helps in gain sustainable competitive advantage by emphasizing on the environment change.

The models build an effective relationship with the stakeholders within the company as well as outside the organization by providing benefits. 

The differences between the 5 elements of successful and effective strategic leadership model   and the Transcendent leadership model are as follow:

• The transcendent leadership emphasizes on leadership for organization benefits as well as self-leadership that involves transcending own desire to help others while the five elements of successful and effective strategic leadership model only emphasizes on the leadership for the organization profit by motivating the employees. 
• The strategic leadership focuses on human resources to develop the relationship in the organization whereas transcendent leadership focuses rules and regulation. 

3. How would you describe Jeff Bezos strategic leadership style?

Is there evidence that he demonstrate all the elements of strategic leadership from the two models? Which elements are strongly evident in the case and which less so?

The Lynch strategic leadership as well as the transcendent leadership styles is addressed by the Jeff Bezos leadership style. According to him, the interest of stakeholders and the customers are essential factors for the growth of the company that company should bother about rather than the competitor’s action. It is also important to communicate with them for which, Jeff Bezos frequently gives interview with the motive to communicate with the stakeholders. Similarly, Jeff Bezos can also come up with long term plans that are innovative and can provide completely new taste for the customers.

However, the leadership elements like prizes and incentives for the employees have not been addressed, though it has been mentioned that the organizational culture is of fun. Similarly, leadership for other is also hardly mentioned. Further, Bezos also gives less priority to self-awareness and competitor’s action (Peyer& Hansen, 2013). 

References:

Ø  Lynch,  R., (2009) Strategic Management, 5th Edition, Prentice Hall, chapter 16

Ø  Crossan, M., Vera, D and Nanjad, L. (2008) Transcendent Leadership: strategic leadership in dynamic environments, T

Ø  Hansen, M.T., Ibarra, H., Peyer, U. (2013) The Best Performing CEO’s in the World, Harvard Business Review.