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The purpose of this paper is to offer an epistemological vantage point for theory development in the case of strategic leadership, an emerging focus of scholarly attention in strategic management.

The authors invoke Rescher's epistemological platform for making the case, Rescher being one of the most influential philosophers in the USA.

The analysis suggests that since strategic leadership differs from supervisory leadership, both on organizational reach and incorporation of external elements, defining the strategic leadership problem exclusively as a difference in context – what Weick referred to as a strategy of knowledge growth by extension – is likely to prove unproductive. Rescher's platform can be put to use for specifying the two critical though inter‐related epistemological challenges in the beginning of the theory development project: the choice of concepts, and the type of relations among the concepts. These epistemological challenges may be reframed as opportunities to capture the phenomenal variety embedded in these concepts, and to deploy a diversity of approaches to examine their correspondence.

Contending and complementary views on strategic leadership, and hence concepts representing alternate views should be allowed. Bridges should be built between islands of scholarship, but these bridges are likely to be found in special issues of journals (devoted deliberately to nurture multiple perspectives), edited books and invited conferences.

Engagement with “strategic” leaders is an epistemological necessity for both theoretical and pragmatic reasons.

This paper demonstrates how epistemology can strengthen theory building in the case of strategic leadership. Given the signal importance of this phenomenon, good theories and, therefore, epistemological challenges should occupy a central stage of discussions in this early stage.

The primary purpose of this chapter is to examine some old truths about leadership at the CEO level, and to summarize a new perspective based on charismatic leadership theory that could help cast light on this important area of strategic management. In so doing, we attempt to move charismatic leadership theory in some new directions by bridging micro-and macro-level conceptualizations. The upper echelons perspective from the strategic management literature is first summarized. We then identify problems in conceptualization and measurement that have served to limit the usefulness of this theoretical approach with regard to understanding the leadership role and effects of CEOs. We present two alternative new models that incorporate the constructs of strategic change, CEO charisma, and perceived environmental uncertainty. Data are also presented, suggesting mixed support for the models. Suggestions are made with regard to future quantitative and qualitative research.

Most of the thousands of studies of leadership as well as strategic leadership in organizations choose as the unit of analysis the individual leader. This choice runs contrary to the often-observed fact that organizations have numerous leaders at all levels of the organization – in other words, a network of leaders, which permeates the formal organizational structure. The purpose of this paper is to re-conceptualize strategic leadership by advancing understanding of: the effects of variations in internal complexity and external turbulence and the effects of choices by the strategic leadership based on those variations.

The paper advocates a network approach to strategic leadership where there is a set of highly dynamic role changes, based on both human and social capital. The typology and propositions in the paper emerged over a period of many years of observation of organizations (direct and indirect) as well as reflection of theories on how strategic leadership actually occurs in medium to large-size profit-oriented organizations.

The paper proposes a model of strategic leadership based upon four modes of single actor and shared leadership (stars, clans, teams, and leadership networks). The paper sets forth propositions for the situational appropriateness of each of these four forms and identifies avenues for future research to advance the theory.

The paper cross-fertilizes extant research streams in leadership and strategic management to create a contingency theory of strategic leadership that is closer to what executives actually experience in the workplace.

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to explore the role of strategic leadership under conditions of uncertainty and unpredictability. The authors argue that highly improbable, but high-impact events require the upper echelons of management, traditionally the custodians of strategy formulation to offer a new kind of strategic leadership focused on new mindsets, organizational capabilities, more in tune with high uncertainty and unpredictability.

Drawing on strategic leadership, and complexity leadership theory, the authors review the literature and present a conceptual framework for exploring the nature of strategic leadership under uncertainty. The authors conceptualize organizations as complex adaptive systems and discuss the imperatives for developing new mental models for emergent leadership.

Strategic leaders have a key role to play in preparing their organizations for episodic disruptions. These include developing their adaptive capabilities and building resilient organizations to ensure their organizations cannot only bounce back after a disruption but have the capacity for transformation to new fitness levels when necessary. Strategic leaders must engage with complexity leadership by seeing their organizations as complex adaptive systems, reconfigure their leadership approaches and organizations to build strategic adaptive capability.

This is a conceptual paper and the authors cannot make any claims of causality.

Organizational leaders need to reconfigure their mental models and leadership approaches to reflect the new normal of uncertainty and unpredictability. Developing the strategic adaptive capability of organizations should prepare them for dealing with high impact events. To assure business continuity in the face of disruptions requires building flexible, adaptable business models.

The paper focuses on how managers can offer strategic leadership for a new normal that challenges some of our most cherished leadership and strategic management paradigms. The authors explore the new mental models and leadership models in an era of great uncertainty.

Creating organisational resilience and creating a positive social impact is becoming a condition for sustainable business development. The adoption of digital technologies requires specific leadership characteristics to resolve complex societal challenges. The purpose of the research is to identify the critical strategic leadership characteristics for developing organisational resilience while creating social- and financial value. There is a research gap in strategic leadership, digital technologies, social impact, and organisational resilience studies which will be addressed in this research. The methodology embeds a critical literature review, complemented by bibliometric analysis. The adoption of digital technology is seen to be a key driver in the societal question and a tool to boost organisational resilience. Sensing, seizing, and driving digital adoption agenda as well as digital adoption are critical and require unique leadership characteristics where contextual ambidexterity was key to the strategic leader when building organisational resilience and creating social- and financial value. The research results can be used for identifying which characteristics strategic leaders must develop for digital technology adaptation to generate both a profit and positive social impact while boosting organisational resilience.

During the last 20 years inclusive practices in primary schools have been promoted by policies and worldwide organisations. Scholars confirm that school leaders have an essential role to play with direct impact on meeting children's needs and that there is a chronic deficiency of research on this issue. The purpose of this paper is to describe how strategic leadership roles implemented by head‐teachers can facilitate the implementation of inclusive policies in the school setting and present possible suggestions through the analysis of leadership theories and literature related to inclusion in primary schools.

The methodology this research employs includes a literature review that conceptualises the roles of leadership positions in inclusive settings. This is structured as an explanatory discourse, drawing on the notion of transformational and visionary leadership as the basis of strategic leadership, in order to identify the important role and strategies of leaders in a primary school setting.

The paper highlights the benefits of exploring the role of leaders in these schools. The paper assumes that organisations are complex structures and the analysis indicates that there is not one single exclusive way of implementing an effective role and that alternatives can be created by adapting a flexible framework. This framework is conceptualised by examples from institutions in which leaders have motivated the improvement of school quality by following the described strategic tools. The implications of this for leadership are that Strategic Intent seems to address the directions of the aims of inclusive leaders: it uses unique strategies and relies on the capability of leaders to encourage further dedication and involvement in the organisation's culture. It is suggested that the key components of this framework which will result in the school setting becoming more inclusive consist of: resource allocation, consistency, strategic planning and cultural considerations.

This paper introduces different strategies that can be explored by school leaders with the aim of being implemented in schools.

This paper has developed a framework to which leaders could adapt their own needs and it assists them in their decision‐making process.

The current strategic leadership literature tends to advocate a leader-centric (upper-echelon) approach to strategy, one in which the leader positions the organization competitively within an environment. Based on complexity theory, we argue that strategic leadership in a fast-paced environment works to organize both the environment and the organization in ways that enhance the firm's adaptability, innovativeness, and fitness. We propose a two-pronged strategy: Foster cooperative relationships with the organization's environment, and enable adaptive organizations that are “partners” in the strategic leadership function.

Most of the literature on strategic management portrays the strategic leader as a planner, decision formulator, and implementer of structure and processes. Theories of strategic management have not paid much attention to the essence of all leadership roles, namely the role of influencing others, and have not been much informed by leadership theories in this regard. In this chapter, I argue that the existing gap between the field of leadership and the field of strategic management can be bridged by paying closer attention to the fundamentally social and interpretative nature of the strategy formation and implementation, and in particular to the role of strategic leaders as managers of meanings. The chapter presents the idea of leadership as the management of meanings, applies this idea to the role of strategic leaders, offers a set of meanings to focus on when we consider strategic leaders as managers of meanings, discusses the link between meaning making and organizational performance, and attends to some potential dangers involved in viewing leaders as managers of meanings.