Business Strategy 15: Leadership Roles to Make Strategic Planning Work

This concludes our series on John M. Bryson’s Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations

Bryson writes “There is no substitute for effective leadership when it comes to planning. Strategic planning is simply a set of concepts, procedures, and tools designed to help executives, managers, and others think, act, and learn strategically on behalf of their organizations and organization’s stakeholders.” (p297)

Best & Worst of Strategic Plans

Bryson cautions “At its best, strategic planning helps leaders pursue virtuous ends in desirable ways so that value is created and the common good is advanced.

At its worst, strategic planning drives out strategic thought, action, and learning; makes it more difficult for leaders to do their job; and keeps organizations from meeting their mandates, fulfilling their missions, and creating value. Whether strategic planning  helps or hurts depends on how leaders at all organizational use it—or misuse it.” (p297)

Leadership Tasks in Strategic Planning

Bryson instructs “Carrying out the following interconnected leadership tasks is important if strategic planning and implementation are to be effective:

• Understanding the context
• Understanding the people involved, including oneself
• Sponsoring the process
• Championing the process
• Facilitating the process
• Fostering collective leadership
• Using dialogue and discussion to create a meaningful process, clarify mandates
• Making and implementing policy decisions
• Enforcing norms, settling disputes, and managing residual conflicts
• Putting it all together” (p298)

Putting It All Together

Bryson summarizes “The tasks of leadership for strategic planning are complex and many. Unless the organization is very small, no single person or group can perform them all. Effective strategic planning is a collective phenomenon, typically involving sponsors, champions, facilitators, teams, tasks forces, and others in various ways at various times.

Over the course of a strategy change cycle, leaders of many different kinds must put together the elements we have described in a way that organizational effectiveness is enhanced—thereby making some important part of the world outside the organization noticeably better.” (p316)

In Conclusion

Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations applies to your small-business. I suggest you consult it.

Tuesday we begin a new series highlighting leadership skills and traits for small businesses