The Strategist: Be the Leader Your Business Needs - Essay Example

The Strategist: Be the Leader Your Business Needs A strategy is a powerful optimization of what a company possesses. Through proper planning, it is very easy to execute ideas. This implies that success can only be realized if a strategy is well planned and executed. A quick review on the old practices clearly indicates that the company strategy was primarily made and possessed by a business leader. Actually, it was a priority. However, over the years, companies have continuously outsourced responsibilities to professional consultants. Montgomery Cynthia in her book The Strategist: Be the Leader Your Business Needs, clearly argues out that this is the prime time for business leaders to reclaim the strategy. The whole idea was conceptualized after a five year teaching of high ranked executives in the world’s best Harvard Entrepreneur program. From her observations, it became evident that majority of her students spent very little time in picturing and actualizing their own companies’ strategies. Leadership and strategy are inseparable. This is a point missed out by many leaders. Clearly as seen, strategies are not ‘how to’ functions in an organization. They cannot be executed on their own, and thus the need for a strong leadership background. There is a very little understanding of the intertwined intimate relationship between leadership and strategy. For this reason, managers keep seeking professional advice from external specialists to help in making company analysis and strategically position them for competitive advantage. This has made strategy a lucrative business for most experts. A question that every business leader must answer is, “Does your company matter?” (Montgomery pp. 13). For this reason, leaders should not only be willing and ready to learn on how best to be effective managers but also creatively think of possible ways through which their businesses can prosper. In real sense, vey many leaders find it extremely difficult to trace the existence of their companies and thus cannot even describe or identify the needs in their individual companies. This causes lots of confusion at the lower levels of management because of the colliding decisions at the top. Since leadership and the strategy are inseparable, a question is posed to business leaders; “Are you a strategist?” (Montgomery pp. 20). A strategist is a leader who wholeheartedly guides the ongoing process from the conception of an idea, its execution, and post convincing results. A strategist carefully watches, identifies, makes decisions, and risks other opportunities for others. Being a strategist entails keen analysis of situations and proper decision making. For instance, Montgomery challenges leaders to picture themselves as the CEO of Masco Corporation. It is a huge company with a strong capital base. The challenge here is investing in a new business venture, which has already high stakes. A dare to venture into the business can either open ways for company growth or it may be a huge loss for the company, considering that it can cost the company more than $2 billion. Therefore, it very important that before making decisions, leaders must have a rich history of their companies and their market places; consider the company. Using the Masco Corporation as an example, its history as at 1986 indicates that the company has been successful for the past twenty-nine consecutive years. It has proved the power of squeezing out profits from any type of company. Its market place is vested in the portfolio of faucets, kitchen and bathroom cabinets, locks and building hardware, and other household products. This has to be followed by indentifying the industry. In their strategy, it was clear that the furniture business was not bringing good returns because there were more than 2,500 manufacturers but only 400 of them enjoyed 80 percent of the whole market share (pp. 32). From the above analysis, it is evident that all leaders must identify their purpose in an organization and align it in accordance to the available resources and activities. Such a realization gives a summary of a leader’s strategy that can be communicated to employees, the public, and to potential investors. There are myths of a super-manager that every strategist has to be aware of. It is very true that no one ever respects timid, passive managers. This makes bold and visionary managers who portray confidence win everybody’s attention. This controversial acceptance explains why strategy and leadership are inseparable. However, it must be known that every person has a unique way of handling issues. Therefore, it is not likely that a competent and leader who possesses a sense of direction can guarantee success in all situations. Masco’s leaders for instance seemed to naturally rely on the myth of a super-manager as portrayed in their behavior. They were action-oriented in solving problems (pp. 41). While confidence is a good thing, it requires keen strategic analysis in winning the game. To avoid the deadly mistake like that experienced at Masco, leaders must the forces. This can give a quick account of the mistakes, failures, and successes among other things. Through such an analysis, it is easy to make the distinctions before selecting on the best in the portfolio. Therefore, the myth of s super leader has to be rejected since all business leaders must be aware of both internal and external forces and not relying on their confidence and action-oriented means in proving success. Leaders have to identify and understand all competitive forces in their business portfolio. Preparations and actual response to such competition is the exact strategy being discussed in the book. In addition, all leaders must at all times respect and never underestimate such competitive forces. Business leaders should be concerned with turning purpose into reality. It must be known that there is nothing important in business and survival of any organization than why it exists. For this reason, all leaders must be in a position to work out and help the company attain a competitive advantage so that it can fulfill some of the unmet needs. Through the IKEA’s story, it is evident that every business entity has to define a sound and distinctive purpose. Through this, a strategist can be on the right track in the business game. It all begins with purpose redefinition. This entails looking at the support elements like the products, brand, stores, marketing power, the supply chain, and the management. In real sense, these form the strategy wheel. Strategists make mistakes too. The common ones that must be avoided are making generic statements, no trade-offs, use of empty clichés, forgetting the means, forgetting the customer, and being dull. By identifying and avoiding these deadly mistakes, a strategist can be in a good position to keep the identified strategies vibrant to make sure they are accomplished as per the game plan. Actually, leaders must be in a position to know that they are not managers of a strategy. They should be concerned with building new things that were not in existence and make them operational. The example of Apple Inc. gives a good illustration of the unsellable technology that saw the rise of the super-leader era through the late Steve Jobs. From this, strategists learn that what really matters is the evanescence of a difference. That is the power to hold onto something knowing that once it is gone, no one can ever bring it back to the original form. Conclusion Leaders must be in a position to project future trends and work collaboratively to ensure organizations are prepared to adapt unexpected changes with ease. Such preparedness not only helps organizations in attaining a competitive advantage but also ensure continuous growth. Montgomery Cynthia gives a real life experience in her explanations and brings out the issues that strategists ignore. The major concept in this book is to help business leaders in developing necessary skills and the appetite that can sustain the demands in their positions. It challenges leaders to answer questions like, “Does your company matter? Are you are Strategist?” the ability to answer them correctly proves how difficult it is for managers to run a company. Leaders have to know that an effective strategy is a realization and appreciation that changes in any organization is a common. Therefore, they must embrace it, and align themselves in accordance to internal and external environments. The alignment should be in line with organizational culture to help it in fulfilling its objectives. Competition cannot be ignored in business. The earlier leaders get prepared to face it the better, because underestimating such a force is suicidal and can lead to the collapse of multinational company. Work cited Montgomery, C. A. The strategist: Be the leader your business needs. Collins. 2012. Read More