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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.

This empirical study aims to identify the essential strategic leadership and management factors underlying sustainability in healthcare. It also examines which factors drive sustainability performance outcomes (SPO) in health-care organizations, an analysis lacking to date. It provides a strategic leadership and management perspective toward sustainable healthcare, responding to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The investigation adopted Sustainable Leadership as its research framework. Using a cross-sectional survey, 543 employees working in health-care and pharmaceutical companies in Thailand voluntarily provided responses. Factor analyses and structural equation modeling were employed.

The results revealed an emergent research model and identified 20 unidimensional strategic leadership and management factors toward sustainability in healthcare. The findings indicate significant positive effects on SPO in health-care organizations. Significant factors include human resource management/development, ethics, quality, environment and social responsibility, and stakeholder considerations.

The study was conducted in one country. Future studies should examine these relationships in diverse contexts. In practice, health-care firms should foster significant strategic leadership and management practices to improve performance outcomes for sustainability in healthcare.

This paper is the first empirical, multidisciplinary study with a focus on strategic leadership, health-care management and organizational sustainability. It identifies a proxy for measuring the effects of essential strategic leadership and managerial factors for sustainability in pharmaceutical health-care companies. It advances our currently limited knowledge and provides managerial implications for improving performance outcomes toward sustainable healthcare.

The combined roles of strategic planning and decentralized strategy-making remain an essential issue in strategy research and its resolution has implications for management practice. To this end the current study considers the added effects of adopted leadership style and use of interactive controls and thereby uncovers new interesting insights about the combined strategy-making process. The authors use structural equation analyses to investigate these more fine-grained relationships based on an updated cross-sectional dataset from among the largest companies in Denmark. The analyses find that a participative leadership style drives the application of interactive controls, which in turn has a positive interaction effect on the relationship between strategic planning and corporate performance. A participative leadership style also exerts positive influence on autonomous strategic actions, which in turn has a negative direct relationship to performance, but a positive interaction effect on performance together with use of interactive controls. The authors discuss the theoretical foundation for these intricate relationships and consider opportunities to extract further research insights.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.

This study aims to examine and assess the effect of knowledge management and strategic leadership on performance of hospitals by using variables’ mediating effect of dynamic capability.

The population included in this study are all the elements of leadership, i.e. both structural and functional leaders at the four hospitals in Makassar [the central government (Dr Wahidin Sudiro Husodo), Regional General Hospital belonging to the Provincial Government of South Sulawesi (Hospital Labuang Baji and hospitals Hajj) and government hospitals (hospitals belonging Makassar City Government)]. The sample size resulting from the analysis tools included approximately 100 respondents. This research used both structural, i.e. structural equation modeling (SEM), and Sobel tests for assessing the mediation effects.

First, dynamic capabilities as a mediation variable in relationship between the knowledge management and performance of hospitals, indicates that higher knowledge management will result in improved hospital performance, if the mediated dynamic capability was also higher. Second, dynamic capabilities as the mediation in the relationship between strategic leadership and hospital performance indicates that a higher strategic leadership will lead to improved hospital performance, if the mediated dynamic capability was also higher.

The results of previous studies on knowledge management in public sector organizations were not sufficiently clear. Moreover, the study of knowledge management in the health services industry also received less attention from previous researchers. This research attempts to fill the gap further by examining the influence of knowledge management on organizational dynamic capability and organizational performance of hospitals. The presence of the mediating variable dynamic capability also differentiates this study from previous studies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine knowledge of strategy within the field of educational administration. It is intended to be the basis for future empirical research and inquiry into strategy in education by suggesting alternate ways of defining and researching strategy.

The study examines the contemporary context of educational administration, the evolution of strategy as an educational construct, its definition and need within educational administration. Using this information the author identifies key conceptual and methodological issues in current research.

The paper finds that knowledge of strategy in education is incomplete and muddled because research and writing in the field have approached strategy from a narrow and conceptually flawed position.

The advancement of knowledge in the area will only advance with alternate conceptualisations and methodological approaches.

Rather than merely review literature, this paper proposes a redefinition of strategy as an educational administration construct, focusing on key features not words and actions. The hope is that fellow scholars and practitioners will continue to question and focus on the key features of strategy and the issues that confront them.

This paper sets out to investigate and critique the corpus of recent research into gender dimensions of strategic management and accounting processes with a view to establishing the current state of knowledge and offering both future research and policy implications.

A literature‐based analysis and critique are employed. This is constructed from a social constructionist perspective, drawing on concepts of the variably gendered identity of discourse and of process, and a theory of absence.

The study uncovers major gaps in research attention and consequent knowledge concerning gendered characteristics of managers' and accountants' approaches to, and involvement in, strategic management and accounting processes. Evidence suggests that in these processes both feminine and masculine features constitute important but at present inadequately researched and understood modes of operation.

This research suggests opportunities for androgynous strategic management and accounting processes that draw on characteristics from both feminine and masculine perspectives. Also identified are a significant array of knowledge absences and related further research questions to be addressed.

The study opens up an area of significant research neglect, particularly in accounting. It offers theoretical and methodological paths for moving this research agenda forward.

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.

The purpose of this study is to study the collective effect of leadership, strategic planning and entrepreneurial organizational culture (EOC) on organizational excellence.

Using primary data obtained through a survey questionnaire, hypotheses have been developed for testing. Out of a total of 565 questionnaires, only 355 questionnaires were returned where data were collected from the Dubai police organization. The structural equation modelling (SEM) approach was used to analyse the collected data.

Statistical findings using SEM-partial least square confirmed the full mediating role of strategic planning as a mechanism between leadership and organizational excellence. In addition, the results reported a significant effect of leadership on strategic planning besides its impact on organizational excellence.

Results reported many valuable implications. The outcomes of this study have practical implications that will help managers, decision-makers and practitioners to consider the study’s variables to enhance the overall performance through achieving excellence.

The collective role of leadership, strategic planning, EOC and organizational excellence is studied as one of the most important empirical studies which bring original contribution to the existing body of knowledge.

This paper focuses on not‐for‐profit (NFP) general management competencies and examines the predominant desired knowledge skills and abilities as a key component of general management responsiveness capability in empirically validated strategic success hypothesis. The strategic success hypothesis postulates that the performance of an organization will be optimized when the strategic aggressiveness and the responsiveness capability of general management is aligned with the respective environment.

The research utilizes a content analysis approach whereby the contents of job postings for the top positions in NFP organizations from different sources were analyzed and summarized. The analysis involved the collection of a comprehensive list of the top‐level general management position or job advertisements posted in both print and electronic media. Some of the sources include the Non‐Profit Times, job postings by agencies, and electronic job posting boards.

One of the key findings was that the NFP sector utilizes the top‐level general management to address the fiscal management dynamics. Fundraising experiences and skills are emphasized and were listed as the key responsibility of the top‐level general management. There was also some emphasis on not‐for‐profit organization management skills and experiences along with communication, governance, interpersonal skills, budgets and fiscal management. The other finding was that in addition to the above sector related desired competencies, generic experience, skills and position responsibilities were emphasized.

The limitations of this study include: Using job postings as a proxy for actual preferences for certain competencies has certain disadvantages. For instance, the quality of job postings in terms of information included might be a reflection of the writing skills and depositions of the drafters. The size and the life cycle stage of the organization might impact the need for certain competencies. For example, a small start‐up agency might not be concerned with governance or ethics issues like a huge organization such as the United Way. The nature of the NFP's activity may also influence the type of competencies sought.

The most important feature of any organization is the quality of its human resources. The NFP sector is currently faced with many challenges which include fiscal, technological, human resources, governance and overall effectiveness. While leadership is recognized as a powerful resource in determining the direction and the future of the organization, leadership alone is not sufficient to address all the problems facing the sector. Firms do need effective managers, good strategic management systems, motivated staff, and adequate financial resources to drive success.

The study found that formal educational requirements were emphasized with over 77 percent of the job postings listing bachelor degree and above as criteria for selection. This indicates that there is need to develop curriculum at the higher education level aimed at addressing the specific needs of the NFP sector. About 23 percent of the job postings did not specifically state formal education as criteria for selection; it might have been an oversight because it is unlikely an organization would hire a CEO with no reasonable formal education.