The Dangers of Short-Term, Muddled Thinking: How Bad Strategy Leads to Poor Leadership

“People are sheep. TV is the shepherd.” (Scott, Jess C. Literary Heroin (Gluttony): A Twilight Parody)

Bullet-Point Summary:

1. Bad strategy is characterized by a lack of clear diagnosis, absence of guiding policy, and failure to address critical obstacles. 📊

2. Bad leadership can range from disengaged and uncritical isolates to highly engaged but uncritical diehards. 👑

3. Effective leaders achieve desired organizational outcomes and goals through competence, strategic vision, and motivation. ✅📈

4. Efficient leaders accomplish tasks in a streamlined, cost-effective manner by optimizing processes and managing resources. ✅💰

5. Ethical leadership involves a strong moral compass, fairness, and a commitment to doing the right thing. ✅

6. Leader integrity requires alignment between words, actions, and values, building trust and credibility with followers. ✅🗣️

7. Regularly evaluate and reassess strategy and leadership to ensure effectiveness and alignment with organizational goals. 🔄🎯

8. Develop leaders who are capable of driving change and achieving desired outcomes through efficacy, efficiency, ethics, and integrity. 🚀👩‍💼

Hashtags:

#Leadership #Strategy #Ethics #Integrity #BadLeadership

Introduction

The concepts of strategy and leadership are often shrouded in confusion and corporate double-speak. However, for any organization to thrive, it's crucial to have a clear understanding of these concepts. In this blog post, we take a different approach by first defining strategy and leadership by their opposites. We'll explore Richard Rumelt's ideas on bad strategy, and Barbara Kellerman's model of bad leadership. 

We'll then propose a two dimensional simple empirical framework for good leadership that first maps a leader's efficacy and efficiency in terms of strategy implementation. This is essential to keep the support of the board or whoever exercises oversight. 

The second dimension is the leader's capacity to keep the support of followers by demonstrating high integrity and creating a culture of respect for rules and norms. After all, leading a rule-based organization sets the leader apart from the chief of a gang or tribe. Finally, we'll discuss what can be done to solve strategy and leadership challenges for organizations.

Bad Strategy and Vision

According to Richard Rumelt, bad strategy is characterized by the lack of a clear diagnosis of the problem, the absence of a guiding policy, and the failure to address the critical obstacles to progress. A clear diagnosis requires a solid understanding of the drivers of change in a sector, developed over years of professional experience in different organizations or even different sectors. Rumelt argues that bad strategy is often the result of mistaking goals for strategy, failing to confront the challenges, and using "fluff" to mask the absence of substance.

Bad Leadership

Once an organization has a clear strategy and knows the right things to do, it needs a leader to drive the implementation of this strategy. Barbara Kellerman's framework for categorizing bad leaders consists of two key dimensions: Level of Engagement and Critical Thinking. Kellerman categorized bad leaders into five types based on these two dimensions: isolates, bystanders, participants, activists, and diehards. This two-dimensional perspective provides a nuanced way to understand the different manifestations of bad leadership.

A Simple Framework for Good Leadership

Based on the search results, here is a two dimensional framework for discussing leadership in terms of efficacy/efficiency and ethics/integrity:

Efficacy and Efficiency

* Effective leaders are able to achieve desired organizational outcomes and goals. This requires competence, strategic vision, and the ability to motivate and empower followers.

* Efficient leaders are able to accomplish tasks and objectives in a streamlined, cost-effective manner. This involves optimizing processes, managing resources wisely, and minimizing waste.

* Effective and efficient leadership is crucial for organizational success and sustainability. Leaders must balance achieving results with responsible stewardship of the organization.

We can see now that bad strategy, generates bad leadership, or as Yogi Better said: "If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else." There is no point in doing things efficiently if you are not doing the right thing, or advancing strategic objectives.

Ethics and Integrity

* Ethical leadership is characterized by a strong moral compass, fairness, and a commitment to doing the right thing. Ethical leaders serve as role models and foster a culture of integrity.

* Leader integrity refers to the alignment between a leader's words, actions, and values. Integrity builds trust and credibility with followers. Without credibility, no leader can keep the support of followers.

* Ethical leadership and leader integrity are foundational for effective and sustainable leadership. They promote trust, accountability, and a focus on the greater good rather than self-interest.

Ethical or servant leadership, marked by a strong moral compass, fairness, and integrity, is crucial for building trust, fostering a culture of accountability, and ensuring sustainable leadership that prioritizes the greater good over self-interest.

In summary, excellent leadership requires both a drive for results (efficacy and efficiency) and a steadfast commitment to ethics and integrity. The most impactful leaders are able to seamlessly integrate these two dimensions to achieve organizational success in a principled manner.

What to Do?

To avoid bad strategy and leadership, organizations should:

1. Develop a clear diagnosis of the problem and identify the critical obstacles to progress.

2. Create a guiding policy that addresses the problem and provides a roadmap for action.

3. Ensure that the strategy is coherent and that all actions align with the guiding policy.

4. Foster a culture of engagement and critical thinking among leaders and followers.

5. Encourage leaders to demonstrate high integrity and create a culture of respect for rules and norms.

6. Provide training and development opportunities for leaders to improve their efficacy and efficiency.

7. Establish systems for accountability and transparency to ensure ethical leadership.

8. Encourage open communication and feedback to build trust and credibility between leaders and followers.

9. Regularly evaluate and reassess the strategy and leadership to ensure they remain effective and aligned with the organization

Key Takeaways for Leaders

Understanding the opposite of good strategy and leadership can help organizations avoid common pitfalls and achieve success. By focusing on efficacy and efficiency, ethics and integrity, and a culture of engagement and critical thinking, organizations can develop leaders who are capable of driving change and achieving desired outcomes. The key is to remain vigilant, regularly evaluate and reassess strategy and leadership, and make adjustments as needed.

List of sources

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• Arif, L., S. Raj Chaudhury, & LaCross, L. (2023). Understanding Leader Integrity on Employees’ Perceived Inclusion through Mediating Role of Leader-Member Exchange. International Journal of Organizational Leadership, 12(2), 216–234. https://doi.org/10.33844/ijol.2023.60360
• ‌Din, U., & Zhang, L. (2023). Unveiling the Mechanisms through Which Leader Integrity Shapes Ethical Leadership Behavior: Theory of Planned Behavior Perspective. Behavioral Sciences, 13(11), 928–928. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs1311092
• ‌Engelbrecht, A. S., Heine, G., & Mahembe, B. (2017). Integrity, Ethical leadership, Trust and Work Engagement. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 38(3), 368–379. https://doi.org/10.1108/lodj-11-2015-0237
• Kellerman, B. (2004). Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters. Harvard Business Press.
• Khan, H. (2021, April 9). 10 Characteristics of Bad Leadership. Simpplr. https://www.simpplr.com/blog/2021/10-characteristics-bad-leadership/
• ‌Rumelt, R. (2011). The Perils of Bad Strategy. Harvard Business Review, 89(6), 30-39.‌
• Tammeleht, A., Löfström, E., & Rodríguez-Triana, ja M. J. (2022). Facilitating development of research ethics and integrity leadership competencies. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-022-00102-3