Foundations of Strategy and Leadership

Module description

This module will help you become more effective in your Strategic Leadership role, it focusses on the skills needed to operate at a strategic level in your organisation and in so doing you will create a personal leadership development plan and a strategic leadership plan. Creating value lies at the heart of every business and every market. You will develop an understanding of the relevance of markets, ethics and governance to managers in business, and introduced to key issues in the economics of running a business. We will also introduce the notion of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a means of creating value and show how socially responsible business can be integrated into the heart of the business model. And finally based on this work you will develop an understanding of the use and application of several key strategic marketing principles including: strategic marketing branding, customer management and innovation management.  

Full module specification

Module aims

Through an emphasis on experiential and workplace learning, the module aims to equip you with the strategic leadership, and insight to your organisation, executive and professional skills needed to advance your career into more senior strategic leadership roles.  Using critical reflection, you will draw meaning from across your experience as a leader to date and engage in a series of activities intended to build on that experience to progress. To give you further insight to your organisation the module will introduce you to the concepts in economics that underpin much of the world of modern business. It will help you to understand how businesses, organisations and economies work, and why. Economic concepts and thinking lie at the heart of how markets work, how and why organisations function and how and why people behave. As interactions between the organisations its customers and competitors form the basis for understanding how to take that organisation forward, leading to innovation and change of the offering - what it is that the organisation does - to meet, or address, or even shape the needs of its customers. Marketers are in a unique position to explore customer and stakeholder perceptions and behaviours and hence how the organisation can survive and grow. How marketers communicate their insights and understanding within their organisations is as important as how they communicate to win customers’ hearts and minds.

Skills acquisition: You will develop several transferable skills at a strategic level, including: personal effectiveness, enhanced self-awareness, cultural awareness, influence and negotiation, effective communication and networking.  As well as strategic analysis including analytical skills for explaining and applying the relevance of economics and value creation in your organisation, strategy development, project management and strategy presentation and writing.

Research in teaching:  The module builds on recent research and scholarship in the field of leadership, in particular; leadership development, relational leadership models, persuasion and influence and strategic leadership concepts. The module will draw on research articles and books and use the module designer’s research expertise in the areas of discussion; and engage you in independent research. You will also be encouraged to consider sustainability in relation to both macro and micro economics.  The module also builds on research and scholarship in the field of marketing, well-established frameworks and theories are covered and in particularly focusing on how to analyse customers, markets and competitors. There is a focus on readings from practitioner-oriented journals. Through experiential learning, you will embark on a journey of discovery using heightened self-awareness and personal development. For inspiration, guidance and support a series of webinars, videos, group forums, learning logs, online reading material, and facilitated online group sessions will be offered in addition to a physical classroom masterclass workshop.

ILO: Module-specific skills

• 1. Know how to shape organisational vision, culture and values. Understands organisational structures; global perspectives; governance and accountability; the external environment, social, technological and policy implications
• 2. Knowledge of the external political environment and use of diplomacy with diverse groups of internal and external stakeholders.
• 3. Application of principles relating to Corporate Social Responsibility, Governance, Regulatory compliance
• 4. Knowledge of brand and reputation management

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

• 5. Use personal presence and “storytelling” to articulate and translate vision into operational strategies, demonstrating clarity in thinking and using inspirational communication
• 6. Organisational/team dynamics and how to build engagement and develop high performance, agile and collaborative cultures

ILO: Personal and key skills

• 7. Manage complex relationships across multiple and diverse stakeholders; Builds trust and rapport, with ability to positively challenge; Leads beyond area of control/authority, and able to influence, negotiate and use advocacy skills to build reputation and effective collaborations
• 8. hasAttain high levels of self-awareness, emotional and social intelligence, empathy and compassion; Is able to identify mental well-being in others; Work collaboratively enabling empowerment and delegation
• 9. Give and receive feedback at all levels, building confidence and developing trust that enables people to take risks
• 10. Leads and influence people, building constructive working relationships across teams, using matrix management where required; Understands large scale and inter-organisational influencing and negotiation strategies
• 11. Lead beyond area of control/authority, and able to influence, negotiate and use advocacy skills to build reputation and effective collaborations

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

All passed components of the module will be rolled forward and will not be reassessed in the event of module failure.

Defer – as first time

Refer – capped at 50%

Syllabus plan

The following theories and concepts will be taught throughout the module:

• Individual perspectives: overview of: essential leadership theory; personality, identity and authenticity in leadership; a variety of topics including the functioning of markets, the nature of supply and demand, price elasticity, the role of knowledge and information asymmetries, the creation of externalities and the role of stakeholders;  behavioural economics and the insights it provides into the actions of participants in the market; and strategic marketing, market positioning and marketing philosophy.
• Organisational perspectives: strategic leadership and performance; leadership and power in organisations; culture, strategy and context. introduction of tools for analysing firms including the five forces and the value chain and show how to use these to dig into what it is firms do to create – or, sometimes, destroy – value. Building sustainable competitive advantage and the resource-based view, strategic marketing planning process, customer management, Key Account Management and CRM.
• Societal perspectives: leadership in and of communities; leading for a sustainable future. Ethical business and social responsibility, how they are created and how they are central to an understanding of both value creation and the workings of markets; connection between responsible business, trust, relationships with stakeholders and the long-term creation of value.  Environmental analysis and horizon scanning in marketing strategy 

Work-based learning component

The module includes a work-based learning element that should be fed into the ongoing e-portfolio and the end of Year 1 work-based learning project.

This module includes a significant work-based learning component and enables the participants to reflect their understanding of the need for strategic leadership and management in exploring the economics of the firm and its market, but also implements a plan to use responsible business to make the organisation more resilient and building stronger relationships. The module incorporates the development of a strategic marketing and leadership plans based on your own organisation’s strategic imperatives.

You will:

• Identify the component parts of your organisational strategy
• Use your own framework to evaluate leadership capabilities required for the achievement of the organisation’s strategic objectives
• Construction of a personal strategic leadership plan and an implementation process to support achievement of strategic ambitions.
• Explain how the strategic objectives of the organisation impacts on the strategic marketing plan
• Identify the component parts of a strategic marketing plan
• Explain an approach to gain agreement for the implementation of the strategic plans
• Identify evaluation measures for the implementation of the agreed plans
• Determine the data and information available to the strategic manager for decision making

Discuss methods to recommend a course of action, or organisational improvement, as the result of conclusions, including methods of presenting the recommendation.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Northouse, P.G. (2018) Leadership: Theory and Practice, 4^th Edition. Sage Publications Inc. California

Baines, P., Fill, C. & Rosengren, S. (2017) Marketing 4e. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kotler, P. (2015) Confronting Capitalism, AMACOM

Module has an active ELE page?

Yes

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

A variety of electronic reading materials will be provided on ELE – Library to provide hyperlink to appropriate pages 

Web based and electronic resources: 

CMI - Management Direct - an online management resource portal. Management Direct allows managers at any level to learn, research and think. It offers fast, 24-hour access to the latest digital content to help overcome hundreds of managerial challenges from absence to performance to change: 5 minute, 20 minute and extended briefings; Creative tools for problem solving; Hundreds of checklists and interactive scenarios to aid self-directed learning; Self-Assessments and automatic CPD recording/reporting; Document templates and best practice guides.

Origin date

04/04/2018

Last revision date

14/02/2020