Strategic Management vs. Leadership

The terms Strategic Management and Leadership are often used interchangeably. The prefix 'strategic' before management makes people believe that it has something to do with leadership skills. However, in a nutshell, strategic management is one of the many skills that a good leader must possess. While it is not difficult to distinctly define the two, both these terms are often interconnected. Let us explore some of the similarities and differences between these two terms. 

Managers and Leaders   

It is a common mistake to assume managers for leaders. Using misleading terms such as 'team leaders' for managers invoke even more confusion. However, one must understand that there is a significant difference between the core responsibilities of managers and leaders. While managers are more concerned with running day-to-day activities of an organization as per a predefined plan, leaders are more involved with 'making' of these plans. In simple words, leaders formulate policies while managers implement them. Some of the differentiating aspects of managers and leaders are:

• Managers are often resistant to change and focus on dispatching their duties as per a pre-defined strategy.

• The very source of a leader's existence comes from the need to 'change'. Leaders sense the changing behaviors of internal (employees, organization) and external (client, market, competitors etc.) entities and bring about necessary changes in the organizational policies. 

• Managers are more concerned with maintaining status-quo, whereas leaders associate themselves with the mission and vision of an organization. 

Strategic Management and Leadership

Strategic management is closely associated with leadership. It is different in a way that strategic managers do not blindly follow the policies. They implement advanced performance metrics to assess the performance of their employees and actively participate in the appraisal process. They focus on the core competencies of the employees and align their tasks accordingly. In fact, they are instrumental in creating future leaders.  

Strategic managers are not resistant to change. In fact, they are pivotal in bringing about changes that can positively impact the organizational development. Strategic managers possess comprehensive knowledge about the organization; hence prove to be a valuable resource in critical tasks such as initiating planning, execution, control and evaluation. Strategic managers supervise and coordinate technological, material, financial and human resources of an organization. Their objective is to help an organization and its stakeholders to achieve the stipulated goals and mission effectively. 

Last but not the least; management is a position that is assigned to an individual whereas leadership is a quality that renders him followers!

Performance Management System Interventions in Organization

Self-Assessments or value judgments are an integral and natural phenomenon in the routine activities, mannerisms and behavior in humans. On the same note applying the assessment of the performance as a tool for an organization is an indispensable aspect of Organized Development in the progress of the business. Conducting timely and frequent evaluation of all the working resources of an organization can prove to be very fruitful in regards to a qualitative sustainability. 

It has been established that measurement and feedback on all levels does generates a steady output and boosts the competency in the work environment. In cases of a required performance interventions it is important to emphasize on both; the work output and the gratification of the staff.

Today Strategic Management Consulting Firm delicately deliver customized on-site training, one on one assessment sessions and workshops with professional expertise to enhance the skill set and morale of the employees working in mid-size businesses; thereby increasing productivity and generating an increased business output. Some significant aspects that are applied in the practice of Strategic Management Consultants include the follows:

• Tracking the dynamics of the staff through supervised Group Discussions.
• Tracking the coordination and level of communication between the working resources and their sub divisions.
• Unifying the senior management and the staff by conducting a platform for communication on the lines of performance, hindrances, objectives, necessary changes and follow ups.
• Promoting healthy interactions amongst all the levels of the management.
• Articulating a new structure of business processing with inputs from the staff and the strategy or plan of action to execute it in accordance.
• Defining the structure of staff in the organization by emphasizing on the importance of exclusive and specialized work performances in accordance to the working environment, the business process scenario and the objective of the organization.
• Defining the Goals, Empowering the appraisal systems on both performance based and that work incentives, Strengthening the career prospects in the organization, Diversifying the working resources to pave way for a healthy working environment and conducting staff workshops on stress management and other issues.

Cerveausys Strategic Consulting Private Limited a premier human resource management firm which specializes in outsourcing professional strategic hr consultants & strategic management Consultants in Pune. The competency mapping consultants at Cerveausys, Pune, specialize in rendering professional Human Resource and Organizational Development services and have assisted a number of organizations to shape their growth and boost their prospects for development.