Strategic planning is an essential process that is based on many aspects, in particular, on the leadership principles. There is a plenty of materials for a good leader to keep in mind when making decisions. The Vroom-Yetton Contingency Model, for example, suggests that decision-making process should base on the circumstances. After examination of the Model, one can understand that a leader’s ability to make changes in an organization vastly depends on the style of leadership.
The way a leader makes decisions often affects the result, positively or negatively. There are certain types of decision-making, which can have different outcomes. For instance, a manager can follow the Autocratic Type 1 (AI) or 2 (AII) as in the Vroom-Yetton Model, and make a decision alone. In this case, he is likely to miss some important information that would have been provided by the employees if the leader had asked them. This is an example of the negative effect.
Alternatively, a leader can present a problem to the employees (CI, CII, GII types) and get to know some details he was not aware of earlier. Then, he either makes a decision alone basing on the employees’ discussion or let them decide by themselves. Such tactics can have positive outcomes.
The recent teambuilding event in my organization would serve as an example of the ineffective leadership. Once informed about the upcoming teambuilding activity, the employees were not happy. It would have been possible to avoid this situation if the manager had asked their opinion: most of them have found it problematic to leave their kids and to camp for the entire weekend. Stephen Covey’s Habit 2 (“Begin with the end in mind”) could have helped our manager to effectively achieve his initial goal, to build a team. I should add that communication has always been an area for improvement in our organization. It seems that growing into Covey’s Habit 4 (“Think win-win”) can be a solution to the problem since cooperative approach leads to success in most cases.
Strategic planning is likely to be an important tool to guide public sector organizations. It helps companies to set the right track. What matter is the fact that leadership principles, especially “situational” ones, should be applied to the strategic planning process.