Strategic leadership means developing and practicing leadership skills with a strategic intent. The authors, who are both with the North Carolina-based Center for Creative Leadership, have based this guide on a program there.
As they write in the introduction, more and more companies expect leaders to bubble up at all levels of the organization. "Everyone is a leader"—who hasn't heard that? It makes sense, then, that certain aspects of responsibility for strategy creation have also been filtering down to the ranks from companies' highest echelons. The book, aimed equally at junior, middle, and senior managers, lays out a framework for linking all-hands-on-deck leadership with the basics of strategy building.
The framework describes in more detail what strategic leadership encompasses, and goes on to objectify the skills of people like Bill Gates and Lord of the Rings trilogy director Peter Jackson when they make a game plan. It also describes some how-tos for influencing others around a strategy ("Start to influence others by looking at yourself," and asking: "Do people trust me?"). The authors also share their mixed experiences teaching strategic leadership to managers in different settings. A planned series of sessions for department heads at a liberal arts college, for example, was sunk when it became clear that a larger problem for the college was internal rivalry and the lack of an overall shared vision. A healthcare organization, on the other hand, was ready to embrace strategic leadership due to a solid foundation of shared values.
The book does well at explaining the emergence of a trend in organizations and the methods for getting the most out of strategic ideas at all levels.