One constant thing in organizations is change. Irrespective of who initiates the change, strategic leadership skills are needed to rally others in support of its implementation to successfully manage and accomplish this much-needed change. Many a leader with good ideas fails at change management mainly because they can’t get beyond vision.
Successful leaders need to take a holistic approach to organizational change: working top-down to influence stakeholders and mobilize support, and bottom up to keep projects and people moving forward. In the midst of change, organizations yearn for leadership – typically with differing expectations of what constitutes effective leadership in response to their needs, hopes, and priorities.
At the same time, organizations resist leadership and change. After all, leadership assumes those who follow will be open to more change. Leading Strategic Change provides organizational leaders with insights and tools for understanding and leading change strategically.
The authors have ably discussed a number of ways that are helpful to any leader to facilitate strategic change including how the organization should align its culture to strategic thinking for successful change implementation to occur.