Strategic Management and Leadership

Q1. Explain the link between Strategic Management and Leadership
The strategic management process helps institutions identify what they intend to achieve and how they will accomplish outcomes. The term strategic management is used to refer to the entire decision-making process. Strategic management must evolve by predicting the future (more effective planning), thinking strategically (increased responses, evaluation of strategic alternatives and dynamic allocation of resources) and creating the future (strategic planning through orchestration of all resources to create advantage) (Gluck, Kaufman & Wallach, 1980). Therefore the orchestration of all resources within an institution, strategically driven by a flexible planning process that incorporates the institutional culture, means strategic management is at work.
It serves as a mechanism to provide direction to an institution and at the same time has the potential to propel an HEI on a perilous course into uncharted waters. It helps coordinate organizational activities, but taken to excess can create “groupthink,” where the choreography is overdone. According to Certo and Peter (1991, 5), “strategic management is defined as a continuous, iterative process aimed at keeping an organization as a whole appropriately matched to its environment.” Stembridge (2001, 24- 25) states: “the continuous process of strategic management then, includes strategic planning, i.e., analysis, as well as strategy formulation, implementation, and control activities […].” Planning is a part or component of strategic management, but not a management substitute (Dunn, 1998).
Leadership is about strategic management, discretionary decision-making and policy development. Ohmae (1982) represents leadership as a cornerstone in a triangle along with management and planning. Leaders are charged with the task of moving an institution forward in an effective manner; with taking the institution from its current mission-state to a new and

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