Strategic Leadership

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A strategic leader is essentially the leader of any organization and someone who has to steer the company in times of change, whilst motivating and inspiring their team.

Strategic Leadership from the renowned leadership expert John Adair encourages leaders to focus on tomorrow rather than yesterday. It explores the nature and origin of strategic leadership, transferable skills and the art of inspiring others. It then describes the role itself and broad functions of that role such as building and maintaining a team, achieving a common task and motivating and developing the individual. It moves on to assess the skills you need to be effective, and the seven generic functions that make up the role of strategic leader which include providing direction, strategic thinking and planning, building partnerships and developing tomorrow's leaders.

Full of checklists, summaries and historical examples, Strategic Leadership will encourage you to ask the right questions whilst defining the role and skills of a strategic leader.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of figures (p. ix)
• List of tables (p. xi)
• About the author (p. xiii)
• Introduction (p. 1)
• Part 1 The role (p. 5)
• 01 Strategic leadership (p. 7)
• Military origins of strategic leadership (p. 8)
• Learning generalship (p. 12)
• The art of the commander-in-chief (p. 14)
• Transferable skills (p. 15)
• The art of inspiring others (p. 17)
• Key points (p. 19)
• 02 The generic role of leader (p. 21)
• Group needs (p. 22)
• The three circles model (p. 23)
• Necessary functions (p. 24)
• The generic role of a leader (p. 24)
• A leader's qualifications (p. 27)
• The intellectual side of leadership (p. 29)
• Key points (p. 32)
• 03 Levels of leadership (p. 33)
• Understanding organization (p. 33)
• Different leadership responsibilities (p. 36)
• The functions of strategic leadership (p. 38)
• Key points (p. 40)
• Part 2 The seven functions (p. 41)
• 04 Giving direction (p. 43)
• Purpose (p. 44)
• The reason why (p. 46)
• Values (p. 48)
• Vision (p. 49)
• Checklist: Giving direction (p. 51)
• Key points (p. 52)
• 05 Strategic thinking and planning (p. 53)
• The military analogy (p. 54)
• The nature of strategic thinking (p. 55)
• Strategic planning (p. 57)
• Some principles to bear in mind (p. 61)
• Checklist: Strategic thinking and planning (p. 63)
• Key points (p. 64)
• 06 Making it happen (p. 65)
• Controlling (p. 67)
• Controlling in organizations (p. 69)
• When things are going wrong (p. 70)
• The importance of teamwork (p. 72)
• The eight hallmarks of a high-performance team (p. 73)
• Checklist: Making it happen (p. 75)
• Key points (p. 76)
• 07 Relating the parts to the whole (p. 79)
• Unitary and federal organizations (p. 80)
• Harmony at work (p. 81)
• Reviewing your organizational structure (p. 83)
• A good strategic leader always delegates (p. 89)
• Organizing yourself (p. 90)
• Checklist: Relating the parts to the whole (p. 94)
• Key points (p. 95)
• 8 Building partnerships (p. 97)
• The three circles model (p. 98)
• Social relations in general (p. 100)
• Checklist: Building partnerships (p. 101)
• Key points (p. 102)
• 9 Releasing the corporate spirit (p. 103)
• Asabiyah (p. 104)
• The force of purpose (p. 107)
• Checklist: Releasing the corporate spirit (p. 109)
• Key points (p. 110)
• 10 Developing today's and tomorrow's leaders (p. 111)
• Case study: Learning to lead at your new level (p. 113)
• Checklist: Developing today's and tomorrow's leaders (p. 115)
• Key points (p. 116)
• Conclusion (p. 117)
• Index (p. 119)