The thoughtful consideration of the relationships that the organization has within its external task environment, within its internal constituents and stakeholders, and between internal and external domains. Strategy work focuses on the artful creation, strengthening, weakening, or dissolution of relational connections in order to optimize the organization’s future success and wellbeing.
Published in Chapter:
The Heart of Strategic Leadership and Strategic Management: Conundrums, Ambidextrous Agility, and Relationships
Nancy Kymn Harvin Rutigliano (SUNY Empire State College, USA), David Starr-Glass (University of New York in Prague, Czech Republic), and Angela Benedetto (University of California – Los Angeles, USA)
Copyright: © 2017
|Pages: 10
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-1049-9.ch078
Abstract
In reviewing the rich and diverse chapters that have been incorporated into this Encyclopedia, a number of threads and themes emerge. This chapter, which serves as a conclusion to the Encyclopedia, explores some of these themes. All strategic work presents a fundamental conundrum: strategy requires the simultaneous commitment to what has been decided and openness to continuous change. The conundrum can be moderated, although not resolved, through a pervasive appreciation of agility and ambidexterity within the organization's culture and by its leaders. However, the strategy paradox can also be accentuated – even to the point of organizational dysfunctionality, paralysis, and destruction – by viewing strategic leadership and strategic management as two separate functions. The article explores strategy work in terms of the putative fracturing into leading and managing components, and suggests that their holistic and synergistic integrity needs to be restored. The article also explains why relations, relationships, and relationality lie at the heart of all strategy work.