The Leader's Role in Strategic Planning

The Leaders Role in Strategic Planning
Name
Instructor
Institution
Date
Background 
Leaders establish strategies, organize and direct actions and ensure the set objectives are implemented as part of strategic planning. Additionally, leaders guide and inspire followers to achieve the desired results based on strategic plans. Strategic planning focuses on a company’s current and future market, where decisions are made using internal and external information to analyze a company’s position and to determine the strategic direction. Each organization has a mission, vision, and values that articulate what the organization stands for and addresses the stakeholders’ interests. Planning also prioritizes an organization’s vision, goals, objectives, mission, key priority areas, and business strategies. Making strategic decisions requires a good understanding of the competitive landscape, and leaders play a crucial role in promoting business strategies. This paper focuses on leaders’ role in strategic planning.
Planning process
Planning is essential when setting goals are set and there is a focus on the results to be achieved in the future. Leaders are actively involved in supporting planning efforts linked to an organization’s mission and objectives. Determining the policies, programs, procedures, methods, standards, and strategies is necessary to support planning, decision-making and courses of action. Decisions are made based on the set objectives and plan to achieve the objectives and desired outcomes (Schoemaker, Krupp & Howland, 2013). In strategic planning, the leaders take into consideration future alternatives where objectives are accompanied by effective strategies and resources to actualize the plans and improve competitiveness. In strategic decision-making, internal and external information is used to analyze and evaluate the company’s position to implement an effective action plan.
It is essential to capitalize on leadership skills and think strategically to position the organizations to be more competitive and implement effective strategies in changing business environments. Creating strategic plans and long-range planning are essential in strategic management to allow organizations to respond to changes in the competitive environment (Bryson, 1988). A leader articulates an organization’s vision and mission, and the employees focus on implementing initiatives that address the key priority areas. Engaging in strategic planning requires having a change agent who champions strategic decision-making and a strategic planning team that facilitates the strategic complementation of ideas and plans.
Aligning the organizational culture with the business model is another factor that is considered in strategic planning to facilitate the successful implementation of the strategies. The employees ought to understand the strategies, and the leaders are motivated to support its implementation. Channeling resources and capacities to achieve the strategic objectives is also necessary for strategic planning, where there is also strategy alignment and communication about the strategy. There are different factors affecting the ability to ensure the success of the...