BUS 415: Reading: Strategic Leadership

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Strategic Leadership

Article in School Leadership and Management February 2004

DOI: 10.1080/1363243042000172804

2 authors, including:

Brent Davies

University of Hull

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Strategic leadership

Brent Davies and Barbara J. Davies

This chapter considers:

1. What is strategic leadership.

2. What strategic leaders do.

3. Characteristics strategic leaders display.

4. A model for strategic leadership.

Introduction

Strategic leadership is a critical component in the effective

development of schools. The key foci for those who led schools in the

last two decades, in many countries, have been school effectiveness

and school improvement. These foci are set against an agenda of

centralized curriculum and assessment frameworks with a primacy

given to test results. While these developments may be welcomed or

criticized, they probably have an inherent conceptual flaw in that they

are attempting to improve current patterns of schooling within the

existing paradigm of education. Even if such attempts at improvement

are successful, the question that should be asked is, are they

sustainable? This chapter puts forward the view that renewed

attention needs to be paid to the strategic dimension of leadership to

ensure this sustainability. Much of the orthodox perspective of

leadership development suggests that new leaders tend first to address

current administrative and managerial issues to build confidence and

organizational ability before moving to a more strategic and futures

activity. We argue that what is needed is a concurrent or parallel view

of leadership development in which leaders not only improve on the

Chapter 1

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‘now’ of school improvement but concurrently build strategic

capability within the school.

This chapter draws on insights gained from the National College for

School Leadership (NCSL) research project, ‘Success and Sustainability:

developing the strategically focused school’, which was based on detailed

case studies of leaders in primary (elementary), secondary (high) and special

schools to analyse their strategic processes, approaches and

leadership. Our analysis of strategic leadership will be supported by the

‘leadership voices’ of the participants in the research project. The project

identified, through initial survey data, inspection and evaluation reports,

schools that were strategically led and sustainable for a detailed case

study analysis. The focus was on the features of strategic leaders, in terms

of what they did and what characteristics they displayed.

What do we understand by strategic leadership? Strategic leadership

is not a new categorization or type of leadership such as transformational

leadership or learning-centred leadership. Rather it is best

considered as the strategic element within the broader leadership paradigm.

Initially, a definition of strategy can make use of five concepts.

First, it is concerned with the idea of direction-setting. To decide on the

direction for the institution, it is necessary to understand its history

and its current situation. This is articulated by Garratt (2003: 2) who

gives an excellent definition of strategic thinking:

‘Strategic Thinking’ is the process by which an organisation’s directiongivers

can rise above the daily managerial processes and crises to gain

different perspectives of the internal and external dynamics causing

change in their environment and thereby giving more effective direction

to their organisation. Such perspectives should be both future-oriented

and historically understood. Strategic thinkers must have the skills of

looking both forwards and backwards while knowing where their organisation

is now, so that wise risks can be taken by the direction-givers to

achieve their organisation’s purpose, or political will, while avoiding

having to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Second, strategy, while very often associated with planning in traditional

definitions (Fidler, 1996) might better be thought of as a

perspective, as a holistic way of looking at things. Third, strategy does

not get involved in the detailed day-to-day activities but is concerned

with the broad major dimensions of the organization. Fourth, a mediumto

longer-term time framework is useful when considering strategy. A

final useful concept is that strategy can be used as a template against

which to set shorter-term planning and activities.

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Defining leadership presents a challenge owing to the expanding

amount of literature in the field from which to draw. The forms of

leadership are extensive and other chapters in this book consider

symbolic leadership, transformational leadership, learning-centred

leadership, constructionalist leadership, emotional leadership, ethical

leadership, distributed leadership, invitational leadership,

entrepreneurial leadership and sustainable leadership. So where to

start? Bush and Glover (2003: 10), in their review of the leadership

literature for the NCSL, define leadership as ‘a process of influence

leading to the achievement of desired purposes. It involves inspiring

and supporting others towards the achievement of a vision for the

school which is based on clear personal and professional values’.

Building on this generic definition of leadership, Davies and Davies

(2004) use a nine-point model of strategic leadership which combines

five organizational abilities and four individual characteristics of

strategic leaders. Using this model as a reference point this chapter is

split into three parts:

1. What strategic leaders do.

2. Characteristics that strategic leaders display.

3. A model for strategic leadership.

What strategic leaders do

We put forward the view that strategic leaders involve themselves in

five key activities:

direction setting

translating strategy into action

aligning the people and the organization to the strategy

determining effective intervention points

developing strategic capabilities.

Direction-setting

Strategic leaders are concerned with not just managing the now but setting

up a framework of where the organization needs to be in the

future, setting a direction for the organization. The function of strategy

is to translate the moral purpose and vision into reality. A useful way

to picture this is illustrated in Figure 1.1.

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Figure 1.1 The function of strategy

School leaders articulate the definition of the organization’s moral purpose

which can be considered as ‘why we do what we do’. The values

that underpin this moral purpose are linked to the vision considering

‘where we want to be and what sort of organization we want to be in

the future’. Strategy is the means of linking this broad activity to

shorter-term operational planning, thereby imbuing the responses to

immediate events with elements of the cultural and value system.

Strategy is defining that medium-term sense of direction. School

leaders in the NCSL study characterized it as:

It’s talking about marshalling your resources and looking with a future

perspective in order to achieve the maximum potential in an organization.

Your strategy is how you are going to get there, what kind of structures

you put in place in the school, what measures you take to make things

happen, how you use the money – all these things build up a strategy to

getting where you want to get to.

A strategy to me is a plan of action, a conscious plan of action, that’s

taken in the light of various information that I have available at the

time but the strategy takes various forms.

Strategy for me is about where you are going and why you are going.

Strategy, therefore, is translating the vision and moral purpose into

action. It is a delivery mechanism for building the direction and the

capacity for the organization to achieve that directional shift or

change. This translation requires a proactive transformational mindset

which strives for something better rather than the maintenance

approach of transactional leadership.

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Translating strategy into action – develop strategic and

organizational processes

Davies, B. (2002) suggests a four-stage ABCD approach of translating

strategy into action as shown in Figure 1.2.

Figure 1.2 The ABCD approach

Source: Davies, B. (2002: 204).

First the articulation of the strategy can take place in three ways; oral,

written and structural. Oral articulation is the way leaders communicate,

through strategic conversations, the strategic purpose and

direction of the organization. This concept will be further developed in

considering strategic conversations. Written articulations are the formal

statements and plans that are clearly distinguishable from

operational short-term plans. Structural articulation refers to the organizational

infrastructure that supports and develops the strategic

approach, for example, setting up futures or strategy meetings separate

from the cycle of operational meetings. These three elements are

reflected in the following school leader responses in the NCSL study:

I am constantly talking to the staff about where we are going and how

they can contribute. I think it’s really, really critical that you find a way

to communicate the basic organizational goals to the largest number of

people possible.

We separate out our school development plan and our corporate longerterm

strategic plan.

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The operational management team looks after the here and now, the

school development plan team looks at the duration of the plan and

the research and development team actually looks a bit further into the

future, outside of this.

Second, it is necessary to build a common understanding of what is possible

through shared experiences and images. This building stage entails

envisioning a clear and understandable picture of what this new way of

operating would look like. This involves awakening the people in the

school to alternative perspectives and experiences, and building an

agreement within the school that a continuation of the current way of

working is inadequate if the school wants to be effective in the future.

Third, the leadership needs to create through dialogue a shared conceptual

or mental map of the future. What strategic leaders are able to

do is step back and articulate the main features of the current organization,

which might be called the strategic architecture (Kaplan and

Norton, 1996; 2001) of the school, and lead others to define what the

future of the school and the new architecture will be. This may involve

the process, described by Davies, B. (2003), of enhancing participation

and motivation to understand the necessity for change, through strategic

conversations. Significantly it draws on high-quality information

both from within and outside the organization which is part of the

strategic analysis that underpins the dialogue.

Fourth, the leadership needs to define desired outcomes and the

stages of achieving those outcomes. This will establish a clear picture of

the new strategic architecture of the school. Tichy and Sharman (1993)

identify this stage as involving the identification of a series of projects

that need to be undertaken to move the organization from its current

to its future state. The significance of this approach is that stage 4 can

be embedded in the organizational culture only if time is taken to work

through stages 2 and 3.

Aligning the people and the organization to the strategy

Wilson (1997: 1) states ‘organisational change has two principal aspects

– change in mission and strategy and change in culture and behaviour’.

We believe that it is impossible fundamentally to change mission and

strategy without changing culture and behaviour. Key to this is changing

the mindset and the behaviour of the people within the

organization. The importance of aligning the people is recognized by

Grundy (1998) and Gratton (2000). The research interviewees articu-

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lated a process based on strategic conversations which built participation

and motivation within their school to improve strategic capability.

These alignment processes work in an iterative way as in Figure 1.3.

Figure 1.3 The iterative nature of alignment and capability

Strategic conversations: developing strategic conversations and dialogue

involves discussions about holistic whole-school issues and the trends

that face the school over the next few years, as described by Hirschhorn,

(1997: 123–4), Van der Heijden (1996: 41–2) and Davies, B. (2002: 21).

These conversations enable people to develop a strategic perspective of

what the school might become. Without such conversations, however

tentative they might be at first, the future will, literally, not be articulated.

As one school leader in the study put it: ‘We are constantly talking,

large groups, small groups, individuals, a constant feast of two-way conversations

bringing people in line with where we are going.’

Strategic participation: by definition, the conversations lead to greater

knowledge and participation in discussions. It can be a difficult and

slow process from the previous state of being concerned only with the

short term to the new state of being involved in the broader and

longer-term strategic issues. It can be a process of reculturing the organization

(Fullan, 1993; Hargreaves, 1994; Stoll et al., 2002). The process

of greater awareness and participation in discussion is a key way which

develops the ability of the organization to build leadership in depth.

The significant ability here is to build involvement in the longer-term

development of the school. Strategic organizations use the abilities and

talents of wider staff groupings to involve all in building and committing

to the strategic direction of the school. This was expressed by a

school leader in the study as: ‘Because of the high level of participation,

Strategic

capability

Strategic

conversations

Participation

Motivation

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because so much of it is ours, we feel much more in control of the

agenda. I think that’s where the strength of the school has come from.’

Strategic motivation: developing a strategic cause in which individuals

are motivated to contribute leads to an improved commitment and

effort. Gratton (2000: 19–20) advocates developing ‘emotional capabilities’,

‘trust-building capabilities’ and capabilities to build a

‘psychological contract’ as the means of engaging and motivating staff.

Building a commitment to values and long-term ambitions provides

individuals with a vision and sense of direction that allows them to put

short-term problems and challenges into context. Involvement is more

significant than documentation. As one school leader expressed it:

‘Documentation is not as important as what people believe in and what

people do, and it’s all very well to say we have this, this and this and

you can have amazing documentation but it is actually not a plan if

people don’t follow the actions through.’

Building capability: the strategic conversation and enhanced participation

build greater personal and organizational capability and capacity.

Given that the major resource of any organization is the quality of its

human capital, then enhancing that quality should be a major organizational

focus. It is useful to differentiate between capability and capacity.

Capacity can be considered the resource level that is available at any

given moment to achieve an objective. Capability is that mix of skills

and competencies possessed by the people in the organization which is

needed to achieve the task. The right number of people may not, at a particular

juncture, have the right skills. However, when they do, it can be

said that both capacity and capability are present. Boisot (1998: 5) states

that ‘we shall use the term capability to depict a strategic skill in the

application and integration of competencies’. This idea was seen by a

school leader as: ‘the ability to work at challenges together to bring skills

of other people to bear so the organization can learn to solve problems

and not just rely on simplistic external solutions’.

Determining effective intervention points – the right things at

the right time

The leadership challenge of when to make a significant strategic change

is as critical to success as choosing what strategic change to make. The

issue of timing can rest on leadership intuition (Parikh, 1994) as much

as on rational analysis. When individuals in the organization are ready

for change, when the organization needs the change and when the

external constraints and conditions force the change, all have to be

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balanced one against the other. Such judgement is manifested in not

only knowing what and knowing how but also knowing when (Boal and

Hooijberg, 2001) and, as important, knowing what not to do (Kaplan and

Norton, 2001). Therefore we could add to this list knowing what to give

up or abandon in order to create capacity to undertake the new activity.

This was illustrated by two school leaders responding in the project:

I wrote a paper and that basically argued that the climate was right for

change, there are some issues that need to be changed but if we are going

to do it, then it needs to be part of a coherent programme rather than

piecemeal. But the challenge for me personally is this idea of abandonment,

that if we take on these initiatives and new things come on, I

know I have to give some things up.

The strategic timing is absolutely important. It can make or break a

school. If you try and do it at the wrong time it could be disastrous.

Several of the school leaders in the study talked about the critical issue of

strategic timing, of getting the time right for change for themselves and

others in the school. School leaders also talked about this timing being

intuitive: ‘I think from my own point of view a lot goes on fairly intuitively

… I know I can’t go down that road because I’m not ready or they

are not ready. So timing is so critical.’ Choosing the right time and saying

‘No’ if it was not the right time was critical for strategic leaders in the

study. Getting the timing right for the school community was about

being able to choose which external initiatives to implement that would

complement the schools’ own agendas for improvement. This was

clearly illustrated by one respondent: ‘I think you get better at being a

strategic leader the further you go along, because there comes a point

when you actually develop the capacity to say “No we are not going to

do that” or “No it’s irrelevant. We are not going to do it”.’ Strategic timing

affects all the people in the school community. If the strategic timing

is wrong it can have devastating effects on the school. People will be

divided, and realizing the strategy will therefore be impossible.

As we have said, in addition to the critical skill of strategic timing is

that of strategic abandonment. If a school adopts a new way of doing

things or adopts a new strategic priority, how that fits into an already

crowded agenda has to be considered. The result is that leaders have to

downgrade the importance or abandon existing strategies not because

they are wrong in themselves but because they have become less significant

in comparison to new factors. As one school leader said:

I see abandonment as being two different issues. One is the abandonment

of things that are not working and actually taking people’s time and

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energy. That’s easy to do. The other side of it was to actually say OK this

is working well and we are really comfortable with it and it is getting the

results we want, but actually there is another strategy here that takes us

onto the next stage but we can’t run them both together. This has to be

suspended or abandoned in order to give the other one time to grow.

This concept of strategic abandonment is a very powerful one. The difficult

aspect of strategic abandonment occurs where the school has to

give up acceptable current practice to make capacity available for future

improved practice.

Developing strategic capabilities

Prahalad and Hamel (1990) use the term ‘core competencies’ while

Stalk et al. (1992) use the term ‘strategic capabilities’. These can be illustrated

by the analogy of a tree, where the branches represent the

short-term abilities and the roots are the underpinning fundamental

capabilities of the school. If the school is to develop and be sustainable

in the longer term, then it needs to develop strategic capabilities.

Examples of these would be the fundamental understanding of teaching

and learning rather than the ability to deliver the latest curriculum

innovation; a problem-solving culture rather than a blame culture for

the staff; and assessment for learning rather than assessment of learning.

Creativity in problem-solving and teamworking are necessary to

give the school deep-seated strategic capabilities or abilities. The pressure

to deliver short-term targets can lead to the postponement of

longer-term more significant developments. Davies, B.J. (2004: 1)

argues that:

it seemed to me that the challenge was to continue the necessary shortterm

improvements in standards, while at the same time, developing a

commitment to the ‘bigger picture’. It was important to put in place

organisational structures and processes for developing thinking, which

would in the longer term, sustain high standards and provide more effective

learning experiences. There would be no unsustainable ‘quick fixes’.

These parallel developments needed a strategy. Some developments we

could easily plan for but for most we needed to build capability.

School leaders in the study commented:

The staff are very good ‘knowers’ but not very good ‘learners.’ We have

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to change that over the longer term to build a learning community.

The more long-term things are those that you know where you want to

get to but you are not quite sure yet how you are going to do it so you

need to build some kind of capability within people – so for instance

developing a learning focus school. Now that requires a lot of people to

change and to do that you need more time so people need to go on

courses, need to do some reading, need to build them some coaching and

all that takes much longer. Once people learn how to do that they have

their own views about what learning focus in schools is so then we have

to come together and talk about it.

I think the new capability which I’m trying to work on more than anything

else is to develop the reflective practice because … if my staff can

reflect on what they are doing, if they can be life-long learners whatever

the strategic intent may be … whatever it is we are adopting; if they can

be learners rather than knowers I think that’s absolutely vital. And we

are not there yet.

This capability-building approach is a central factor in a strategically

focused school and is one of the key activities of a strategic leader.

Deploying a repertoire of strategic approaches in their schools

Strategy is often equated with strategic planning when in effect strategic

planning is only one of a number of approaches to strategy. A

valuable classification of strategic approaches is provided by Boisot

(2003). He considers there are four approaches to implement. These

are:

strategic planning

emergent strategy

intrapreneurship or decentralized strategy

strategic intent.

Strategic planning is a rational, linear approach whereby a coherent set

of objectives can be achieved by undertaking a predetermined number

of steps and activities. It can be summarized as ‘You know where you

want to go, you know how to get there and you know how to recognize

it when you have arrived’. While this may fit some of the

organization’s activities, other activities may not be so predictable. It is

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associated with detailed, written plans.

Emergent strategy can be considered to be one that results from learning

from current activities. When an organization responds to new

challenges, certain responses will be more successful than others. As the

organization replicates the successful activities and does not replicate the

less successful ones, it builds a strategic framework to guide future action.

Initially this is a reactive strategy, a response to external changes, but it

subsequently builds a strategic framework for future action.

Intrapreneurship as Boisot (2003) calls it, or decentralized strategy as it

is more usually known, occurs when organizations find difficulty coping

with the detail of strategic direction and planning in a complex and

ever-changing environment. Therefore they decide to come to terms

with the turmoil by deploying a decentralized approach. Thus the centre

of the organization will lay down core values and key strategic

directions but will give the subunits in the organization the freedom to

work out the detail of this strategy.

Strategic intent is a framework in which the organization sets key strategic

goals which ‘stretch’ the organization to new levels of performance.

While the organization knows where it wants to go and what it wants to

achieve, it does not know how to achieve it. The organization engages in

a series of capability-building measures to establish the capacity to

achieve its objectives. So the organization moves towards the future by

building a series of strategic intents and the capabilities that are necessary

to achieve them (Davies and Ellison, 2003).

One key factor that emerged from the NCSL research was that the

strategic leaders in the study used different strategic approaches in

different situations. They used a portfolio of approaches in a

sophisticated way to meet complex needs. So, in areas where it was

possible to have a clear plan, they used a rational, linear strategic plan.

At the same time many found the concept of strategic intent a very

useful approach:

Strategic intent is a wonderful way of unifying and clarifying positions,

particularly in times of great turbulence and change. It’s not a detailed

vision where we would see where we are going, with all t’s crossed and

i’s dotted … it’s a feeling of where we may be heading, which brings

everybody along with you.

The use of decentralized strategy was evidenced in secondary (high)

schools and not in primary (elementary) schools. Interestingly, emergent

strategy was often used for developing information technology

(IT) capability in the school.

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Characteristics strategic leaders display

The NCSL research established significant characteristics of strategic

leaders in schools:

Strategic leaders have a dissatisfaction or restlessness with the present.

Strategic leaders prioritize their own strategic thinking and learning.

Strategic leaders create mental models to frame their own understanding

and practice.

Strategic leaders have powerful personal and professional networks.

Strategic leaders have a dissatisfaction or restlessness with the

present

This restlessness involves what Senge (1990) describes as ‘creative tension’

which emerges from seeing clearly where one wishes to be, one’s

vision and facing the truth about one’s current reality. Strategic leaders

are able to envision the ‘strategic leap’ that an organization needs to

make and act as passionate advocates for change. Strategic leaders have

the ability to live with the reality that the organizational culture may

not be as forward thinking as they wish. It is the ability to live with the

ambiguity of not being able to change the organization fast enough,

together with the ability to maintain the restlessness for change and

improvement. Individuals who have these abilities, challenge ideas and

processes to seek better ideas and processes. This is shown in the following

responses from two school leaders:

Everyone, whether you have an open mind or not is frustrated at times and

it can be for very positive reasons and it can be for very negative reasons.

It’s probably about sifting through those levels of anxiety, worry, concern,

frustration and actually turning them into something more positive.

One of the things that drives me is that I am never satisfied.

Strategic leaders prioritize their own strategic thinking and

learning

A very significant number of the school leaders participating in the

study referred to their own learning and stressed the importance of new

knowledge to promote the strategic direction for the school. A good

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example of this is a school leader who learnt about new thinking

related to children’s learning, which prompted him to take the school

in a new direction:

We were invited onto a school improvement programme some years ago

and it’s the first time I’d heard about Howard Gardner and ‘Multiple Intelligences’

and that really did fire me up because it brought it home to me

what kind of learner I was and why I had succeeded in some parts of the

curriculum and failed fairly miserably in others … so I did a lot of personal

research. I felt this is the school I want, this is how I see learning

going … and then other ideas come to you … accelerated learning, emotional

intelligence and the work of Csikszentmihalyi – all of that was kind

of burning inside. This is this type of school I want for these children.

Another school leader referred to the necessity of understanding strategy

before being able to develop it in school; introducing strategy in

school had been as a consequence of ‘my own awakening to strategic

understanding’. The school leader also stressed that: ‘In order to do

that I have to break it down in my own head first.’ Self-learning was

vital for this school leader and promoted the development of others.

The need to reflect or think was often highlighted:

I often sit down and just brainstorm – just when I’m on my own,

because that is my thinking time.

Thursday is my thinking time and my reading time … so every Thursday

I won’t see anyone, I don’t talk to anyone; unless it’s a parent who

is making a complaint in which case I deal with it immediately. But

Thursday is my time just to think, to read and to reflect and that’s what

I do. You know to be realistic it doesn’t happen every single Thursday

and sometimes when you walk through that door you don’t know what

is going to hit you, but my plan on a Thursday is that’s when I do my

thinking and reading time. Reading may be about what is happening in

school or it might be actually reading some of the children’s work but

Thursday is my thinking and reflecting time.

We can have a free discussion about the direction that we want to go.

Often I am leading that conversation because again that is part of the

privilege that I have through my reading. I am getting lots of really good

ideas and testing them out.

If we are to develop creative schools, then the importance we attach

to thinking and learning needs to start with the leader if that

individual is going to both model and develop creative thinking in the

wider group of staff and students in the school.

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Strategic leaders create mental models to frame their own

understanding and practice

One of the ways that school leaders can make sense of complexity is to

create mental models and frameworks to aid their understanding. In

the study, a number of the school leaders stressed the importance of

having a theoretical model to support strategic developments and the

importance of sharing that model with others in the organization, as

reflected by two respondents:

I went into this process of school development planning splitting it into

operational targets and setting strategic planning and futures thinking.

There is usually quite often a bit of theoretical underpinning so that if

we are going to do something in terms of changing the management

structures or management styles or whatever, we will do a little bit of the

theory … so that people understand why we are actually going down this

route and why we are making the changes.

One school leader articulated well her model of an approach to

strategy, stressing the importance of initiating a new way of thinking:

‘I am working on my own model of strategic change … through a

process which I call awakening, articulation and alignment.’ This

school leader felt that the mental model enabled her to lead change.

She had taken a strategic approach to the problem of complacent staff

and she had used new ideas to challenge colleagues to think in

different ways. While the focus of this change was the school’s

approach to teaching, the example underpins school leaders’

approach to strategy.

Strategic leaders have powerful personal and professional

networks

Strategic leaders constantly scan their environment locally, regionally and

internationally. They seek both to develop new ideas and to benchmark

current practice in their own schools with those of colleagues in the wider

educational community. The ability to develop personal and professional

networks that provide alternative perspectives from those prevalent in their

immediate educational environment is a key skill of strategic leaders.

This has become possible on a global basis with the rapid expansion

of technological communication. The significance of these networks

for developing strategic ideas was highlighted in the study:

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We are focused on opening out our networks because then you get all the

ideas from everywhere and then you can’t be hidebound. We are in that

world, we have to work with that world, so get out there and get in it.

You need an imagination and to feed that imagination you have got to

go on visits to lots of different places, to be more creative to see how

things are possible.

I do have a huge network of colleagues. It’s because I am out and looking

at things that I can see things from different perspectives. I don’t

think a lot of people in the schools do the strategic stuff, I don’t think a

lot of people talk and look outside.

It can be seen that strategic leaders place a high importance on networks

and networking to draw in ideas and inspiration for strategic

change and development. This is a very important personal characteristic

of strategic leaders.

A model for strategic leadership

This chapter has established a number of elements, which contribute

to the development of a strategic leadership. While any single leader

may not display or deploy every single element, the strategic leaders in

our study displayed many of them. In providing insights for leaders

wishing to review their strategic role, a model can now be established

to support them in their self-reflection.

It is imperative that a school leader is strategically focused. Strategic

leaders need to drive the strategy formation in their schools; without

their interest, enthusiasm and understanding the school would not be

strategically focused. Therefore, the model we propose focuses on the

school leader. If school leaders are also to be strategic leaders they need

to understand themselves, their school and others in the school

community and the wider community. They need to be contextfocused.

Strategic leaders need to care about others in order to want to

involve them and need self-confidence in order to involve them. They

need to be people-focused. Individuals can make a difference but

strength comes from staff working together to achieve the same goals

(Barth, 1990). If people are working together, decisions and

implementation of decisions will tend to be better as there will be a

higher level of trust and morale. Finally, they need to both understand

and lead the processes and approaches that contribute to a strategic

approach.

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A significant perspective can be drawn from Gardner’s (1999) notion

of multiple intelligences, and schools should consider a range of collective

capacities to foster and develop the use of experience, skill and

understanding to develop strategic intelligence. Our definition of

strategic leadership would be based on a conceptualization of strategic

intelligence which could be summarized (Davies, B.J. 2004) as three

types of wisdom:

a people wisdom

a contextual wisdom

a procedural wisdom.

This is illustrated in the model in Figure 1.4.

People wisdom

The people wisdom part of the model is illustrated in Figure 1.5.

Senge (1996: 45) suggests that: ‘We are coming to believe that

leaders are the people who ‘walk ahead’, people who are genuinely

committed to deep change in themselves and their organisations.

They lead through developing new skills, capabilities and

understandings. And they come from many places within their

organisation.’ There is little purpose in having a future view for a

school or setting priorities which require action, if these are not

shared. As Korac-Kakabadse and Kakabadse (1998: 1) suggest: ‘It could

be argued that executives always had visions for their organisations,

but whether these visions were shared is another matter.’ If it does not

affect the people within the organization, it will not be implemented.

Having people wisdom to involve and energize staff to deliver the

strategy is crucially important.

Visioning, or foresight, as a process requires an interpersonal intelligence

(Gardner, 1999). The strategic leader must identify the concerns

and feelings of the people in the organization; involving those people

and enabling them to participate is key to the strategic process. People

wisdom is essential in order to understand what motivates people and

how to work co-operatively with them. As Mintzberg (1994) suggested,

strategic planning by the top of an organization can ignore the realities

of planning experienced by those doing the job. Many of these ideas

are, it seems, influenced by the context and the culture of the school

and by the experiences of the strategic leader, which is why ‘people’ is

one of the three wisdoms at the centre of the model.

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Figure 1.4 A model for strategic leadership

Source: Davies, B.J., (2004: 167).

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All the leaders in the project expressed the necessity of involving

others in the strategic process, in both the creation of ideas and in the

decision-making process. While people would be involved at different

levels and to different degrees, it is important that all in the school

community – staff, parents, children and local community – are

involved. De Pree (1993: 99) argues for ‘lavish communication’, which

can occur in an organizational culture which promotes truth and

which does not limit the distribution of information, an organization

where people are the centre of all that happens. This capacity is seen

through the empowerment of the people and their ability to take part

in strategic thinking and action.

Figure 1.5 The people wisdom element of the model

Contextual wisdom

If a clear sense of purpose is to be set, the strategic leader must understand

both the history of the school and the current living experiences

of those in the organization. Strategic intelligence needs to have what

Davies, B.J. (2004) calls a contextual wisdom (Figure 1.6), the capacity

to see the school in relationship to the wider community and the educational

world in which it belongs. This wisdom is a response to new

ideas and events, the ability to listen to others; it is an understanding

of the uniqueness of a particular school environment. This means that

there can be no quick fixes, no transferable blueprints for a strategic

leader to take from one successful school to create a similarly successful

school. Solutions have to come from within the unique context,

through understanding the culture, and sharing beliefs and values.

The relentless pace of life in school often prevents strategic leaders

from being reflective, which is one reason why networking is important.

Similarly, isolation may prevent school leaders from being

exposed to new ideas. Long-term aims for school improvement should

be kept under review and revised in the light of new contextual infor-

People wisdom

Participation

Creative thinking

Shared information

Motivation

Capability

Competencies

Strategic leadership 31

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mation. Strategic intelligence uses the knowledge of the environment.

It is about seeing the big picture, about being able to create the right

agenda for the school by knowing what examples of excellence exist

and what is appropriate for their unique environment.

Figure 1.6 The contextual wisdom element of the model

Procedural wisdom

Procedural wisdom focuses on a strategic learning cycle, which enables

the appropriate choice of strategic approach and appropriate choice of

strategic processes.

The strategic learning cycle part of the model highlights strategic leaders

having the ability to harness the abilities of others; to have the

inner courage to drive the organization forward to the desired future.

The model highlights the need to have the people heading in the same

direction sharing the same values, beliefs and future view. The motion

forward is driven by the restless cycle of learning, aligning, timing and

acting. The learning cycle (Figure 1.7) is driven by dissatisfaction, by

leaders thinking that different and better scenarios are possible, and by

leaders encouraging others to think in different ways.

Figure 1.7 The strategic learning cycle element of the model

The strategic approaches and strategic processes centre on this cycle

of learning from experiences, of evaluating actions, of aligning the people

with the decisions, of choosing the right time to act and of taking

action. The cycle is continuous.

LEARNING

ACTION ALIGNMENT

TIMING

Contextual wisdom

Understanding and developing culture

Sharing values

Sharing beliefs

Developing networks

Understanding the external environment

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The strategic approaches part of the model outlines that strategy formation

can take four different approaches depending on the context

and circumstances. In schools, strategy may involve an integrated

approach of four elements: strategic planning, strategic intent, decentralized

strategy and emergent strategy (Figure 1.8), each being

appropriate given the context, the level of understanding and the time

frame in which the organization is operating.

Figure 1.8 The strategic approaches element of the model

Traditional strategic planning by itself is an inadequate approach. It is

clear that there is more than one approach to strategy and that schools

find the mix of strategic approaches which is best for them. There is

little to be gained from writing a plan in isolation. There is everything

to be gained from the process that lies behind the plan and the action

that follows on from it. The focus needs to be on creative thinking and

strategic conversations rather than filling in documents. If schools are

about learning, then the notion of strategic intent, of building

capability within people and allowing thinking time to develop the

intentions, and of taking an emergent approach, of learning by doing,

are vital to support the plan and critical to school success.

The strategic processes part of the model are highlighted in Figure 1.9.

These processes are the key to procedural wisdom but also depend on

people involvement and on an understanding of the context.

Figure 1.9 The strategic processes element of the model

Strategic processes

Reflection

Creating a common language

Conversation

Developing mental models

Analysis

Articulation

Strategic approaches

Strategic planning

Strategic intent

Emergent strategy

Decentralized strategy

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It is important that the leader should take time to understand theoretical

models in order to develop a common understanding and a

common language for the school community. This facilitates the alignment

of everyone to a common cause in order for a school to continue

to improve. Participants in the project stressed the importance of

analysis, in terms of self-evaluation of effectiveness, and reviewing the

whole process of strategy through involving others. The findings of the

research also stressed the necessity of having both oral and written

articulations of the strategy, which could be shared with others. This

reinforces the importance of strategic conversations for building capability

and motivating others and the necessity of people owning the

plan and being committed to it.

Conclusion

The driving force within the model (Figure 1.4) comes from the effort of trying

to understand, interpret and act on change. The challenge is in

enabling everyone in the school to make their own contribution towards

creating the shared, desired future. The model demonstrates that change

for a strategically focused school has to be in its people, through the way

those people relate to each other, in the context, through shared beliefs

and values, and in the procedures established to focus on the future.

Achieving the future view is not merely a matter of spending more time

on planning or writing more elaborate plans. Rather, it is a matter of changing

the way we understand strategy. What is important is improving the

involvement and therefore the processes for action in order to link the present

action with the desired future. This model is based on the notion that if

we change the processes, the mindset and values will also change. If we

involve the people in every aspect of an integrated approach, then a strategically

focused school is possible. The learning, which feeds the context and

people wisdoms, and therefore the strategic intelligence, is constantly reinforced

by choosing the right time, by strategic conversations to align the

people and by taking action.

The strategic leader has a key role in creating urgency and momentum

for organizational learning, thinking broadly and imaginatively, and working

with others to help them to think about how to use models to support

improvement. It is difficult to imagine that a school can find a way forward

without the school leader being strategically intelligent.

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Reading: Strategic Leadership

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