Ideas that shape direction
Leadership theory and strategic leadership.
Three hours on the ideas that shape leadership and strategy: the main schools of thought and how strategic choices become organisational reality.
- Level
- Focus
- Learning time
- 3 hours
- Where
- Leadership
- Price
- £69
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
Leaders shaping direction and leading strategic change
Overview
A century of leadership research is most useful as a toolkit rather than a history lesson. This programme traces the main schools of thought, from trait and behavioural theories through Fiedler and Hersey and Blanchard to transformational, authentic, distributed and complexity leadership, and asks which lens a real problem calls for. It then turns to strategy: Ansoff, Porter, Mintzberg's emergent strategy and Rumelt's kernel, alongside Kotter's eight steps, tipping point leadership, Collins' Level 5 leaders and Playing to Win. Throughout, the focus is on how leaders turn strategic choices into organisational reality.
Aims
This programme aims to give leaders a clear, usable grasp of the ideas that shape leadership and strategy, so they can judge which approach fits their situation and lead strategic change that amounts to more than a document on a shelf, carried through by people across the organisation.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Explain how the major schools of leadership thought developed and choose the lens that best fits a real leadership problem in your own context.
- Assess whether a strategy contains a genuine diagnosis, guiding policy and coherent action, drawing on the planning, positioning, emergent and kernel schools.
- Plan how a significant change will be carried through your organisation, using Kotter's eight steps, tipping point leadership and Level 5 leadership.
What you'll develop
Through this Focus course, you will build the ability to:
- Explain how each major school of leadership thought, from trait theory to complexity leadership, responded to the limits of the one before it.
- Apply the Managerial Grid, Fiedler's contingency model and Hersey and Blanchard's situational model to judge whether a leadership style fits the people and situation in front of you.
- Distinguish transformational, authentic, ethical and distributed leadership, and use the five synthesis questions to choose the lens a real leadership problem calls for.
- Compare the planning, positioning, emergent and kernel schools of strategy and assess whether a strategy contains a genuine diagnosis, guiding policy and coherent action.
- Apply Kotter's eight steps, tipping point leadership and Level 5 leadership to plan how significant change is carried through an organisation.
- Explain how top team composition, strategic intent, execution discipline and the Playing to Win cascade shape whether a strategy is realised.
Built from 2 parts.
3 hours of learning.
- 01Where leadership ideas come fromLeadership theory and models explainedBitesize1 module
- 02Setting the directionStrategic leadership for senior leadersBitesize1 module
Go deeper, and pay only the difference
- You are hereFocus, 3 hours, £69
- Next stepExplore, Thinking about leadership, 4 hours 30 minutes, £129. Already own the Focus? You pay £60.
- The whole topicImmerse, Leading well, 9 hours 30 minutes, £249. Already own the Focus? You pay £180.
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Prices per person. Read the full terms