Leadership in Action: Strategic Leadership

Individual Leader–Competitive Environment Interface

The individual leader–competitive environment interface helps us understand how the leader interacts with the forces and changes occurring in the broader environment. There are four important aspects here: uncertainty, the complexity of the current environment, systems thinking, and diversity.

Uncertainty

Although increasing uncertainty probably characterizes almost every leader's world, it poses a particular challenge for senior executives. That is because truly strategic decisions are rarely black and white. As Stephen Rhinesmith has pointed out, the evidence for any particular decision is often 51 percent in favor and 49 percent against. He believes that strategic leadership depends upon ...