Strategic Leadership and Organizational Performance: A Critical Review of Literature

Abstract

Effective strategic leadership is considered as a major ingredient for the successful performance of any organization operating in the ever dynamic and complex environment of the 21 st century. In the context of information uncertainty and resource scarcity, strategic leadership is required to confront the reality of environmental turbulence and a continuous need for appropriate organizational change in order to achieve performance goals. Most of the conceptual and empirical studies have shown that strategic leadership actions significantly influence performance. Despite its importance, studies have demonstrated that the influence of strategic leadership on organizational performance is contingent upon situational constraints or random effects. To date, very little empirical research has analyzed the direct and indirect relationship between strategic leadership, external environment, organizational change and performance. This paper seeks to unearth this research gap by critically reviewing relevant conceptual and empirical literature to bring out the possibility that the external environment and organizational change could influence the relationship between strategic leadership and organizational performance. The paper advances the emerging postulations which anchor a conclusion that the direct effect of strategic leadership on performance is contested and hence inconclusive due to possible moderating and mediating influence of the external environment and organizational change respectively. It is hoped that the paper's postulations would guide empirical research in various contexts to hasten addressing of the extant knowledge gaps.

Relationship Between Strategic Direction, Core Competencies And Firm Competitiveness Among Manufacturing Firms In Uganda

“…Additionally, empirical research conducted by scholars such as , Jaleha & Machuki, (2018), Kim & Thapa, (2018), Banmore et al, (2019) discovered that strategic leadership has a beneficial influence on business competitiveness. Researchers that investigated at the association between strategic leadership and competitiveness in the service industry as a whole (Andersson et al, 2014;Wang et al, 2011;G.…”

“…Furthermore, Hitt et al, (2010) argue that strategic leaders must strive relentlessly to apply core capabilities to enhance company performance and, as a result, boost firm-level competitiveness. Jaleha & Machuki (2018) must make decisions to assist their organization in creating, preserving, enhancing, leveraging, and exploiting key capabilities through pooling resources across the firm's many units. These core competencies thrive when they are founded on intangible resources that are not readily obvious to competitors, such as the knowledge or skills of certain persons (Akenten, 2019).…”

Wanted: Heroic leaders to drive the transition to “business beyond usual”

“…A third important debate focuses on whether and to what extent individual-level CEO factors can explain (a sufficient amount of) variance in corporate-level outcomes like CS (Fitza, 2017;Jaleha and Machuki, 2018;Quigley and Graffin, 2017). This critique has two implications for research design and methods.…”

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“…Strategic leadership is regarded by Jaleha and Machuki (2018) and Kabetu and Iravo (2018), as a set of distinctive proficiencies of expecting, envisaging, sustaining flexibility, thinking in a tactical way, and permitting employees to spawn inventive ideas that lead to extraordinary performance. Strategic leadership is dissimilar from the general conception of leadership.…”