26 Ducere Est Servire: THE LEADERSHIP JOURNAL OF DALLAS BAPTIST UNIVERSITY Strategic Leadership Managers play significant roles in the strategy of a company. Robbins et al. stated managers utilize technical skills, human skills, and conceptual skills to achieve their goals.26 Effective managers possess these skills. Managers help form strategies in the strategy-making process.27 There are general managers and functional managers in companies. General managers take responsibility for the overall performance of an organization, and functional managers supervise specific functions within an organization.28 These managers provide strategic leadership necessary to achieve high-performance levels for their organization.29 Managers make decisions involving strategies, goals, organizational procedures, and the distribution of resources.30 Strategic managers often write down budgets, policies, objectives, and strategies communicated from the top management down to the lower level of management.31 Strategy Formulation Strategy formulation is a formal process used by leaders of an organization.32 Hill et al. suggested there are five main steps of strategy formulation. The following steps include: 1. Select the corporate mission and major goals. 2. Analyze the organization’s external competitive environment to identify opportunities and threats. 3. Analyze the organization’s internal operating environment to identify the organization’s strengths and weaknesses. 4. Select strategies that build on the organization’s strengths and correct its weaknesses in order to take advantage of external opportunities and counter external threats. These strategies should be consistent with the mission and major goals of the organization. They should be congruent and constitute a viable business model. 5. Implement the strategies. Analyses of the organization’s external and internal environments and selecting the appropriate strategies is the formal process of strategy formulation.33 Each step in strategy formulation involves additional planning processes. For example, steps 2 through 4 require leaders to conduct a SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis compares an organization’s
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