Strategic Leadership Session 3

Rhetoric and Persuasion 

The main object of the lecture was discovering and analysing influencing techniques and how important it is for manager to know and apply them.

“A leader inspires others to join them on the road; so leadership involves 

communication and influencing skills.” 

                                                               Joseph O’Connor (1998, p.ix)

Quite few influencing techniques are described in this article. http://www.theelementsofpower.com/index.cfm/how-influence-works/

Case Study 2 "Gerry Robinson and the NHS"

We have watched the video about the Gerry Robinson and his attempt to fix the NHS. The case study was highly related to the effective strategic leadership. There were shown the different leadership styles used by management to run the hospital. 

Gerry Robinson mainly used the bridging style of effective leadership, moving from employees to managers.

The main lesson I learned from this case study was the importance of persuasion and influence in the organisation management.

Strategic Leadership Session 2

Session started with previous week recap. Understanding the definition of Strategic Leadership and where it is used (see previous post).


What is interesting that it has been suggested to pay more attention to real world examples, case studies, classroom debates to make up our understanding about the module, instead of just reading the text book.


We have been introduced with our first assignment, where we will need to produce a HBR article. I have never done it before, so will be interesting to get some new skills. As well we did our first case study about Carrefour. http://www.economist.com/node/21542804


The Carrefour case study showed the lack Strategic Leadership  processes in the company, where they have been not able to identify market position and opportunities and threats on the right time.

Strategic Leadership Introduction

Strategic Leadership definition: ‘Strategic leadership is the ability to shape the organisation's decisions and deliver high value over time, not only personally but also by inspiring and managing others in the organisation’*

*Lynch, R (2009) 5th Ed. Strategic Management, FT Prentice Hall, pg599 

Strategic Leadership: Common Themes

Strategic leadership has quite few definitions and to understand it better I researched the internet. This is one of the articles I found is easy to read and understand. http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-strategic-leadership.htm