The Leader as Chief Strategist

Abstract

Modern academic links between leadership and strategy were forged in the early 1960s with the heightened application of strategy to business planning. These links were soon dissolved by the strategy consultants who came to dominate the field of business strategy in the mid-1960s. The consultants dismissed the role of leadership in strategic planning in favor of objective analyses of the external environment that eliminated any need for leadership skills, judgment, values, or intuition. Failures to implement strategy in the 1980s led to limited roles for leaders in implementing strategies they had no role in creating, but the gulf between leadership and strategy has steadily widened. This paper traces the consequences of this widening gulf for teaching leadership and strategy in the classroom. It explores how an integrated approach to teaching leadership and strategy would better prepare today’s students for the challenges they will face as future business leaders.