The relationship between strategic leadership and performance in several subsidiary pharmaceutical plant of the B.Brauen group.

Performance is measure in terms of Profit Before Tax, Standard Cost Variance and Process Order Variance, and Average LE, Customer Complaint Rate. 2. Topic and Research Feasibility. Strategic Leadership refers to the expression of vision and mission in an organization. B. Brauen is a leading German based pharmaceutical company which has a manufacturing site in 24 countries globally which includes countries such as Germany, United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, United States of America, Brazil, Chile, India, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Pakistan Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia and Ukraine. The organization in Germany is managed by a Management Board consisting mainly of members of the Brauen family. The organization in other sites are managed by a local management board which consist of President, Vice President Operations, Vice President Supply Chain and Vice President Finance. There are strongly supported by their respective General Managers. These people form the top management team of their respective sites. Globally, B. Brauen has 27000 employees, hence strategic leadership is very important to serve as a direction for these employees. B. Brauens mission is to capture at least 60% of the healthcare market share in Asia Pacific by year 2015. Its vision is to be among the worlds top 20 pharmaceutical industry by year 2015 also. It is only natural that both vision and mission are closely interdependable. The success of both its mission and vision largely depends on its top managements leadership capabilities. With such a large headcount to manage and diverse manufacturing process as well as products, it is inevitably essential that the organization depends on its executives to guide employees into achieving the organizations goals. As a global group, B.Brauen has been under the leadership of Professor Karl Otto Grobe for the last 38 years. The company has shown impressive financial performance as a whole though some divisions have not performed. The groups Profit Before Tax in 2010 was an astounding 400 million Euros. From this figure, we can see that it is important that all the local management team play a key role in being strategic leaders such as Professor Grobe in order to achieve the organizations performance objectives..

This research is therefore proposed to see if there is a link between the Strategic Leadership skills of its leaders in the 28 pharmaceutical plants to the respective plants performance result. Strategic leadership is an expression of a leaders strategic mission and vision for an organization. It is intended as a driver to motivate and persuade individuals in the organization to also acquire the same mission and vision. Strategic leadership has also been defined as utilizing strategy in the management of employees. It reflects the potential to influence organizational members and to execute organizational change smoothly. A strategic leader creates an organizational structure, allocates resources and expresses strategic vision. Their main objective is strategic productivity. They develop an environment where employees can forecast the organizations need within the context of their own job scope. Employees are encouraged by their strategic leaders to follow their ideas. Such leaders utilize the reward and incentive system in the organization to encourage productivity and quality of work in their employees. This will have a direct as well as indirect influence on the organizations performance. In a nutshell, strategic leadership is all about establishing and implementing the most appropriate vision and roadmap that assists the individuals in the organization in achieving the organizations performance objectives.

3. Literature Review The global pharmaceutical business is a highly regulated industry with stringent standards to comply to. The management work in a complex manufacturing environment which is ever dynamic and far from perfect, not to forget costly. Making profit continues to be a challenge as complying to regulation requirements continues to be more and more expensive as years go by. It is important for them that the personnel perform as intended in a best case scenario to avoid unnecessary losses ( e.g. product and resource wastage) in order for them to maximize profit and achieve organizational goals. Like all other manufacturing industries, pharmaceutical companies also face complex issues that grow more challenging by the day such as (Fulmer and Bleak, 2007) :

 Healthcare reform demands combined with rapid changes in technology, government regulations and policy as well as consumer expectations are revolutionizing relationships with key stakeholders and impacting operations in previously unforeseen ways. Competition from unexpected quarters. The rules of the game are being changed by these competitors. The challenge is current leaders know what is required in the past but not the present or the future. The organizations expansion plan outweighs the amount of leadership talent that is available to support them. Increasing technology development make the leaders job more difficult that ever. Strategic direction, organizational alignment and employee commitment issues continue to pose a problem, and are often exacerbated in the competitive environment. Leadership development programs are not aligned to business needs, hence may not be of value to the organisation. It is reported that 80% of companies do not track business results from its leadership programs (Bolt, 1984). Specifically, leaders are also faced with the following challenge ( Leslie & Palmisano, 2010) : Unable to meet business objectives Poor adaptability to change in the business environment Ineffective in developing good and trustworthy relationship with employees Poor influence on the team Insufficient knowledge on all areas as job scope and experience may be narrowed in the financial area only. Globalization, as known, is good but at the same time it is presenting its own set of challenges as illustrated above, ranging from research to sales and marketing. Adding to the challenge is the patent cliff( the time when generics will be allowed in the market at far lower price with the same safety, quality and efficacy), a sagging economy, rising raw material costs, shrinking R&D budgets and lackluster sales pipelines. In totality, all these challenges make up a recipe that would challenge even the most seasoned leaderships (Leslie and Palmisano, 2010). Organizations are a reflection of its top leaders (Hambrick and Mason,

1984), hence strategic leadership cannot be stressed further as important in order to ensure the organizations achieves its performance goals. Experts tend to believe that companies who succeed in the face of such challenges will do so by placing emphasize on Strategic Leadership. Cheng (2000:17) states that Strategic Leadership used to be defined as determining where an organisation is heading and how to get there. It was also mainly about upper management leaders engaging in strategic and long range planning behind closed doors (cited in Quong & Walker, 2010). Strategic is related to the concept of strategy which is simply a plan of action in accomplishing a goal. Strategic leadership involves making decisions across different cultures, agencies, agendas, personalities, and intentions. It requires establishing plans that are feasible, desirable, and acceptable to the policy of the organization. It also demands the ability to make sound, reasoned decisions with desired implications. The aim of strategic leadership is to determine the end result, carve the best way towards it and apply the most effective means in achieving it including influencing of the employees. Strategy is the plan while strategic leadership is the element associated to thinking and decision making that is required to develop and effect the plan. One may define strategic leadership as the ability of an experienced, senior leader who has the wisdom and vision to create and execute plans and make consequential decisions in a dynamic and uncertain environment (Guillot, 2003). Strategic leadership is also tied directly to transformational leadership. Transformational leaders apprehend the future, see and articulate a compelling vision for what is possible, and ignite in others the enthusiasm and energy to make that vision a reality (Burns, 1978). Todays strategic leader are also those whose work involves collaborating with multiple stakeholders and putting in place strategies to respond rapidly to solve complex problems that often require new ways of thinking and understanding of rapidly changing knowledge (Marturano & Gosling 2007). There are seven principles that can be associated to Strategic Leadership (Quong & Walker, 2010). However, this research by Quong & Walker was only focused on school leaders, who do not really work in a business organization. Nonetheless, this principles can be adopted and extended to study the leadership characteristics of the top management team in all 28 of the B. Brauens pharmaceutical plants. It also failed to look into the influential power of the leader on its follower, which is a key element in strategic leadership.

The proposed research will look into the 8 principles below to compare the strategic leadership skills of its 28 top management teams in order to see if there is a link to their skills and the plants performance. Principle 1 : Strategic leaders always envision the future and have a game plan strategy. Strategic leaders must have a strategic intent which simply means knowing what major end point is wanted, but not really knowing the means of achieving it. They then develop the strategy on achieving their intent and point the way forward to their followers, who are the plant employees in this case.
This means embedding an ongoing learning orientation into our leadership and school life and helping colleagues understand Why I am doing this? and Where are we heading? At the school level this means understanding why an innovation has been adopted or why a pedagogical initiative has become popular. At a higher system and community level, strategic leaders need to determine what future citizens of their society need to learn and to experience in order for their nation to be prosperous and harmonious in the era in which their students will graduate. As an example, consider the problems that would face a society where the education system fails to strategically perceive the need for future citizens of the UK, Australia or USA to be Asia smart, or alternatively the Asian nation that strategically fails to perceive the need for their future citizens to be educated and business ready in English. Strategic leaders ensure: 1.1 the school has a futures strategy that is clearly articulated, shared, understood and acted upon. A futures strategy is NOT a strategic plan (or improvement plan), but a strategy for continuously scanning the horizon and preparing for what lies ahead. 1.2 the schools future strategy takes account of the diversity of the school and its community at large, their dreams and aspirations. 1.3 that values underscore the schools future directions whilst accepting that values change. 1.4 that student outcomes are at the centre of the futures strategy and resource management. 1.5 creativity, innovation and the use of appropriate technologies are embedded in the schools future strategy.

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1.6 a culture and ethos of challenge and support where all staff can engage in looking ahead and positioning themselves for the future including ongoing professional learning and other forms of building capacity.

Principle 2 : Strategic leaders are evidence based and research lot in their decision making. Strategic leaders base their intention and action plan on evidence and research led practice (Groundwater-Smith,2000).. This means that these leaders analyze data on a continous basis in order to make appropriate decisions on the organizations direction and strategy. The data is obtained from social, economical, political or technological source ( Davies, 2008). Strategic leaders examine the research findings in order to find out what works, to source

ideas, to search research possibilities for ways to achieve improved the organizations outcomes. It is also about having regard to the need to say why or to justify why the organization is doing things as they are. Overall, strategic leaders: use data and benchmarks to monitor, track and analyze progress in the organizations performance in order to determine where strategic intervention is required. research into what works, to establish creative, responsive and effective approaches to achieving performance results. . scan the literature and seek information from fellow professionals through conferences, networks and professional learning for ways to improve the performance use evidence to challenge employees under-performance at all levels and ensure effective corrective action and follow-up. work closely with his team to establish practices to continuously collect evidence that is productive and meaningful to improving organizations performance. engage in ongoing professional learning (reading and other systems for keeping up to date) to maintain current knowledge of the business . value the work of their staff, recognize their successes and actively pursue creating new knowledge to be shared with others (through participating in research and development program). Principle 3 : Strategic leaders get things done Strategic leaders put serious effort to make a difference. In order to be recognized as strategic, the leader must be perceived as someone who gets things done. Therefore, they just dont talk about what they might do, but they actually do it. They not only have innovative ideas and the big picture, but their feet are also firmly on the ground in the sense that they are considered to be practical achievers. There is nothing less strategic than being a leader who is just a dreamer someone who has little idea about what can be achieved and what cannot or rather have unrealistic visions. Getting things done involves nurturing our the employees technical, mental and emotional capacities and mobilizing these to achieve important outcomes. Strategic leaders draw on their tacit knowledge and position in the organization to focus action on what is important. They get things done both personally and in collaboration with others. In terms of getting things done, one criterion upon which strategic leaders are often judged is their talent for strategic resourcing. This is about leaders securing the resources their schools need.

Getting things done also entails building confidence as a person and a leader, and modeling the abilities necessary to energize the organization. Building confidence calls for humility, an understanding of self, identification of individual and collective potential, and a belief that leaders have the power to make a positive difference to its followers lives.. Regardless of how outcomes are determined, strategic leaders focus ahead and position themselves to get things done. They focus on improvement, and through strategic processes design ways to achieve improvement. In general, strategic leaders: build a organizational culture which values achievement and is focused on getting things done. regularly and routinely review the organizations handbook including policies and procedures to ensure they are effective and relevant. manage their units financial and human resources effectively and efficiently to achieve the organizations goals. deploy employees appropriately through maximizing the use of their skills and knowledge and managing their workload to achieve enhanced outcomes. develop and maintain effective strategies and procedures for staff training, professional learning and performance management. retain a certain humility and work respectfully with others to show that they value their views and input to overall achievement. Ref : Groundwater-Smith, S. (2000), Evidence Based Practice Towards Whole School Improvement. Paper Presented to the Annual Conference Australian Association for Research in Education Sydney, 47December 2000. Davies, B. (2008), Leading the Strategically Focused School. Keynote paper to the ANTSEL Online Conference, 1824 August. Goh, J. W. P. (2009). Parallel leadership in an unparallel world. International Journal Leadership in Education,Vol 12, No 4, p319-345 Principle 4 : Strategic leaders open new horizons and are innovative Strategic leaders are constantly aware of the important role the organization can play in a world where information flows, where knowledge and understanding are constantly dynamic

and . They do not limit their focus on the day-to-day, the immediate and the routine work. Strategic leaders collect and expose possibilities beyond the norm and open horizons and new directions for their organization and employees. Strategic leaders are always on the look-out for new ways of doing things and for innovation opportunities. They seek to understand how their creates opportunities for innovative practice. Opening new horizons translates into encouraging their followers to see beyond established orthodoxy, experimenting with new, exciting and more effective ways of meeting the needs of the organization. Being strategic may also at times mean the need to stand back from change and consolidate existing initiatives .

Principle 5 : Strategic leaders are fit to lead Leaders have to manage their physical and mental state in order to be resilient, flexible, reliable and resourceful. Fit leaders are those who can be relied upon in times of high pressure. Resilience gives them the ability to overcome obstacles which accompany change and the stress of being persistent in meeting the challenges of the future. Flexibility is the ability to adapt to the change and diversity which typifies a future thinking organization. Reliability is about being able to be counted on when the going gets tough as an unfolding future can cause a degree of anxiety; unexpected changes can pose threats and risks which in turn can lead to stress and illness which may result in prolonged time off work. Reliability is also about being predictable. Therefore, the followers know where the leader is coming from and have a firm basis for decision making and when problems need to be solved. Resourceful leaders actively exploit opportunities which arise unexpectedly and make things happen with limited resources. Strategic leaders have to ensuring a certain degree of fitness that enables them to do their job effectively and manage their work/life balance to enhance their capacity to lead.

Principle 6 : Strategic leaders make trustworthy partner Strategic leaders communicate freely and respect others values. This often involves a knowledge of, and sensitivity to, different cultures and cross-cultural issues, and entails an

understanding of partnerships in the organization which are based on camaraderie and trust. Good partners freely confront issues and articulate a perspective that is different from prevailing or dominant assumption. The concept of a leader as a good partner is an contrary to traditional concepts of top down leadership within hierarchies and of delegation. Being partners in leadership is aligned with the concept of parallel leadership (Goh, 2009)which is a way of describing followers working in parallel with leaders to build on the organizations achievements. Being a good partner is also about passing the baton or succession planning, treating people fairly and with respect.

Principle 7: Strategic leaders do the next right thing

Strategic leadership is about doing the next right thing, which is about ethical leadership. Leaders who are strategic will recognise the importance of ethical behaviours and act accordingly, whereas leaders who are egotistic, openly ambitious (for personal gain), autocratic, manipulative or just dishonest are not likely to be successful school leaders or to hold their positions for very long (Ramsey 2003). Being strategic is about knowing that the best teachers, best students and best families are attracted to a school with a strong reputation for its values, and the values the school reproduces in children. Principals with principles have a reputation for building schools that attract students, support and staff. Amongst the most important values is trust which in our postmodern age is unfortunately difficult to achieve. In a time when most parents would not trust their children to be alone
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with their local church priest on a weekend camp, when they would seek a second opinion if their family doctor told them they had cancer, and wouldnt dream of investing all their money based on the advice of the local bank manager, parents have come to distrust teachers (Starratt 1993). Yet trust is the lifeblood of learning (Ramsey 2003: 26), and parents want to trust their childs classroom teacher. Strategic principals recognise this and they work assiduously at being trustworthy. Strategic leaders constantly find themselves struggling with ethical dilemmas and issues of accountability. These issues transcend school boundaries and inevitably touch upon social justice, equity and culture. At a more pragmatic level, decisions must be made on resource allocation, ensuring professional standards, and ways to manage the difficulties people seem to get themselves in. Strategic leaders know that putting self-interest to one side and maintaining an ethical and socially just stance is not easy. They constantly and consistently apply the ethics of justice and caring in responding to hard and ambiguous questions such as: Who has the greater need and what is best for our school? In dealing with such questions, integrity is vital. Integrity in leadership means being honest and transparent in motivations and intention; it calls for leaders who can acknowledge mistakes and failures and are prepared to expose their humanness. It is about doing the next right thing. Strategic leaders: 7.1 develop a clear statement of roles and responsibilities so that all staff are clear about lines of accountability. 7.2 are ethical and have the habit of doing the next right thing. 7.3 ensure that individual staff accountabilities are clearly defined, understood and agreed. 7.4 reflect on their personal code of conduct and ethical practice to ensure they are a role model to others. 7.5 ensure that their actions match their words. 7.6 ensure that the key basis for all decisions can be justified in terms of student needs.

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7.7 promote a better, more equitable society through actions and leadership. 7.8 are transparent and ensure natural justice in all their dealings with staff, parents and students. 7.9 look beyond their school to broader issues of social justice and societal change and the role of the school in reproducing a democratic society. 7.10 admit when they are wrong or make a mistake.

Conclusion
This

Principle 8 : Strategic leaders have a strong influence on its followers. To quote Henry Kissinger One of the task of a leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have never been. Having a handicap in any of the above will definitely make it impossible for a leader to succeed in leading his people.

It is only natural that innovation allows greater flexibility in adapting to change and uncertainty. This will give them a vital position in the industry. The crucial questions facing the industry is what leadership skills companies will need in order to navigate this complex and changing landscape and how current pharmaceutical leaders measure up to it. Among the critical skills identified are : i) Having a strategic perspective ii) Adaptibility to change iii) Intelligent and quick in mastering new things iv) Influential v) Innovative.

5. Research Problem Though, B. Brauen as a group is making profit, 8 of its 28 plants did not make ay profit in the year 2010. In other words, slightly over 25% of B. Brauens global venture has showed losses. Coincidence or not, historical data shows that it is always the same plants have been showing consistent pattern of profits and losses respectively for the last 5 years.

This has led to the Board of Directors in Germany (the headquarters of B. Brauen) to wonder if the performance of the plant is linked to the top management style in those plant. As B. Brauen is a very financially stable company, there have not been much employee turn over in the top management. Hence, the top management have more or less remained the same group of elite employees for the past 5 years. Heated questions have been raised to question on whether all these plant have Strategic Leaders who are able to lead its employees in achieving the organizations desired performance result. Studies have already demonstrated that there is significant reason to believe that strategic leaders contribute to nonprofit organizational performance in ways consistent with strategic leadership theory (Phipps and Burbach, 2010). Hence, it is only logical to extend this observation to a business organization. However, very little of the research in the field of strategic leadership has considered the sector in which leadership occurs (Boal & Hooijberg,2000). If the problem at B.Brauen is left unattended and unanswered, it is highly probable that the organization may suffer serious losses in the near future. It may also lose its market share to its competitors, hence its mission of serving 60% of the worlds population may never be realized. The purpose of the research is to explore further on the Strategic Leadership skills of its top management in the 28 plants and to gather detailed data and evidence to show if there is a positive influence of Strategic Leadership on Organizations Performance.

5. Theoretical Framework 8 Principles of Strategic Leadership : 1 : Strategic leaders always envision the future and have a game plan strategy. 2 : Strategic leaders are evidence based and research lot in their decision making. 3 : Strategic leaders get things done 4 : Strategic leaders open new horizons and are innovative 5 : Strategic leaders are fit to lead 6 : Strategic leaders make trustworthy partner 7: Strategic leaders do the next right thing 8 : Strategic leaders have a strong influence on its followers.

Strategic Leadership

Organizational Performance

The theoretical framework can be illustrated as above. Strategic leadership is defined by the 8 principles. This is turn has an effect on the organizational performance. The hypothesis is Strategic Leadership as defined by the 8 principle contributes to positive organizational performance.

6. Methodology : A survey will done via distributed questionnaire to the top management team of the 28 sites. The questionnaire will consist of questions that will gauge the Strategic Leadership skills of the top management team via all 8 principles. Each site has between 8 to 12 personnel at the top management team. They are responsible for various sectors such as Human Resource, Operations, Supply Chain, Finance, Information Technology, Research and Development, Technical Engineering and Marketing. Total number of top management from the 28 sites that will be involved in the questionnaire survey is estimated to be 286 , which comes to 1.06% of the total employees in the B. Brauen organisation world wide. The survey will be a cross sectional survey whereby it gathers information on the survey population at single point of time (Babbie, 1973).

The questionnaires will be distributed to 8 section. Each section will contain statements representing each of the 8 principles of Strategic Leadership. A 7 point Likert scale will be assigned to each statement. When responding to a Likert questionnaire item, respondents specify their level of agreement or disagreement on a symmetric agree-disagree scale for a series of statements. Thus the scale captures the intensity of their character (Burns & Burns, 2008). The 7 point scale or category will be as such as : Strongly Disagree Disagree :1 :2

Somewhat Disagree : 3 Undecided Somewhat Agree Agree Strongly Agree :4 :5 :6 :7

Research using Likert scale can range from as low as two category (Agree, Disagree) to as high as 11 (though not the maximum). When multicategory scales are employed, the total score distribution is spread out and reliability is increased ( Masters, 1974). The Likert scaling is a bipolar scaling method, measuring either positive or negative response to a statement. The data collected are known to be ordinal. It can be argued that Likert scales may be subjected to distortion from several causes. The respondents may avoid using extreme response categories (central tendency bias); agree with statements as presented (acquiescence bias); or try to portray themselves or their plant in a more favorable light (social desirability bias). Therefore, an important criteria in designing a scale is to have balanced keying (an equal number of positive and negative statements) . This can help in obviating the problem of bias.

Other important criterias in designing the questionnaire also includes the following (Babbie, 1973): Clearly define the items ( it cant be assumed that the person being questioned knows the term that is being employed in the questionnaire). The questions shall ask only one clear item (avoid double-barreled questions). Questions must be relevant to the principle that it represents. Questions with similar contents are placed together in the same group. Keep the questions short and simple. No negative approach questions ( e.g You should not be working longer hours for....) to avoid confusing the respondent.

No biased terms and items. As the survey is multi-national and multi-cultural, a certain level of sensitivity is required in wording the questions. If at all unique terms have to be used, it must be clearly defined. No slangs or jargon terms. Questions shall be impersonal. Later responses should not be made bias by the wordings used in earlier questions. Questions shall be sequenced from general to specific, and not the other way round. Keep the questions professional.

A pilot run is required with a small pool of respondent to ensure that the questionnaire was a unambiguous, reliable and valid survey instrument, and that all the questions asked were purposeful and concrete (Fink, 1995). The questionnaire will be sent out to named individuals, and includes a pre-paid envelope to minimize disruption to the respondent and to increase the chance of a response. Other guidelines for promoting response rates will also be followed, such as ensuring the confidentiality of responses. The collected data is ordinal whereby they have an inherent order or sequence, but it cannot be assumed that the respondent means that the difference between agreeing and strongly agreeing is the same as between agreeing and being undecided. The data collected from each division can be summarized using the mode value ( the most frequent response). The mean will not suitable as it does not provide an integer value which translate to a particular category. Variability will be expressed in terms of the range or inter quartile range ( not the standard deviation). The observations will be displayed in a dot plot or bar chart ( not a histogram as the data is not continous). The differences between comparable groups is investigated using the Kruskal-Wallis test as there are more than 3 samples (28 groups). The association of this to the performance of the organization

(measured as percentage of achieving its desired financial result in 2010) is investigated using a chi-square test of association.

7. Significance of the Study The study will be able to shed some light and provide new research data on Strategic Leadership in a pharmaceutical industry and its influence on the organizations performance. It is made even more interesting as this research is covering a very global scope right from the United States of America to Asia and inclusive of Europe. The result may provide further information to future researchers on whether there is similarity or variation of Strategic Leadership skills in countries of similar continent. To the B. Brauen group, the study will finally provide an answer on whether Strategic Leadership skills has got any influence on positive organizations performance. If there is a link, the Board members can take several actions such as provide the required Strategic Leadership training to its current leaders of the nonperforming plants OR change the management of the non-performing plants OR deploy some of the leaders of the performing plants to the non-performing plants OR conduct a pre-screening test to assess a persons Strategic Leadership skills before he is hired to a leadership position. If the research turns out to show that there is no positive influence of Strategic Leadership to organizations performance, then the Board of Directors in Germany will know that there maybe several other factors or a combination of factors that cause poor performance in several of their plants consistently. These factors may include higher manufacturing cost or complacent work culture or unrealistic financial targets or high employee turnover and many other variable factors. This calls for further study in order to improve these plants or perhaps a decision to close down these plants completely.

All in all, the result of this research will be able to help the Board of Directors in Germany to make an impactful decision on its future business path and strategy.

8.

1. Bolt, J. 2004. Executive Development Trends. 2. Fulmer, R., Bleak, J. L. (2007). Strategic Leadership. Graziadio Business Review. Volume 10,Issue 2. 3. Leslie, J.,B. & Palmisano, K. (2010). The Leadership Challenge in the Pharmaceutical Sector. Centre for Creative Leadership. Sept issue. 4. Phipps, K. A. & Burbach, M. E. (2010). Strategic Leadership in the Nonprofit Sector: Opportunities for Research. Institute of Behavioral and Applied Management. 5. Hambrick, D.C. & Mason, P. A. Upper Echelons : the Organization as a Reflection of Its Top Managers. (1984). Academy of Management Review. Vol. 9, No. 2, 193-206. 6. Boal, K.B., & Hooijberg, R. (2000). Strategic Leadership Research : Moving On. Leadership Quarterly, 11, 515-549. 7. Quong, T. & Walker, A. (2010). Seven Principles of Strategic Leadership. International Studies in Educational Administration. Volume 38, Number 1, p22-34. 8. Guillot, W. M. (2003). Strategic Leadership : Define the Challenge. Air & Space Power Journal, Winter 2003. 9. Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper & Row 10. Marturano, A. & Gosling, J. (2007), Leadership the Key Concepts. London: Routledge. 11. Babbie, E. R. (1973). Survey Research Methods. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub. Co.

12. Masters, J. R. (1974). The relationship between number of response categories and Reliability of Likert-type questionnaire. Journal of Educational Measurement, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 49-53. 13. Burns, A. & Burns, R. (2008). Basic Marketing Research (Second ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education. pp. 245. 14. Fink, A. (1995). The Survey Handbook. Sage Publications: London.

Strategic leadership requires the potential to foresee and comprehend the work environment. It requires objectivity and potential to look at the broader picture. A few main traits / characteristics / features / qualities of effective strategic leaders that do lead to superior performance are as follows:

Loyalty- Powerful and effective leaders demonstrate their loyalty to their vision by their words and actions.

Keeping them updated- Efficient and effective leaders keep themselves updated about what is happening within their organization. They have various formal and informal sources of information in the organization.

Judicious use of power- Strategic leaders makes a very wise use of their power. They must play the power game skillfully and try to deve consent for their ideas rather than forcing their ideas upon others. They must push their ideas gradually.

Have wider perspective/outlook- Strategic leaders just dont have skills in their narrow specialty but they have a little knowledge about a of things.

Motivation- Strategic leaders must have a zeal for work that goes beyond money and power and also they should have an inclination to achieve goals with energy and determination.

Compassion- Strategic leaders must understand the views and feelings of their subordinates, and make decisions after considering them.

Self-control- Strategic leaders must have the potential to control distracting/disturbing moods and desires, i.e., they must think before acti

Social skills- Strategic leaders must be friendly and social.

Self-awareness- Strategic leaders must have the potential to understand their own moods and emotions, as well as their impact on others.

Readiness to delegate and authorize- Effective leaders are proficient at delegation. They are well aware of the fact that delegation will avoid overloading of responsibilities on the leaders. They also recognize the fact that authorizing the subordinates to make decisions will motivate them a lot.

Articulacy- Strong leaders are articulate enough to communicate the vision(vision of where the organization should head) to the organizational members in term that boost those members.

Constancy/ Reliability- Strategic leaders constantly convey their vision until it becomes a component of organizational culture.

To conclude, Strategic leaders can create vision, express vision, passionately possess vision and persistently drive it to accomplishment.