Lastly, strategic leadership has been considered to be the privilege of the highest echelons in an
organization (Cyert & March, 1963). This is in line with traditional thinking, where strategic matters
are dealt with at the top of the organization, the middle level translated these matters to operational
goals for lower-level managers, and the latter stimulated non-manager employees to fulfill the
accompanying tasks. This vertical division of labor suited the way we think in the Western world.
The term strategy stems from the Greek language meaning the office of the general (Nurmi, 1984).
The main difference between the supervisory and strategic leadership concepts are presented
schematically in Table 2.1.
TABLE 2-1: PRELIMINARY DELINEATION OF SUPERVISORY & STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP
An unsettled concern in the separation of supervisory and strategic leadership is that one no longer
knows how the two types of leadership stack up in practice. There is controversy concerning who
exercises strategic leadership. While the term strategic leadership emerged as a responsibility of the
top management team or dominant coalition (Cyert & March, 1963), some researchers purported that
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leadership can be exercised by first-, middle-, and top-OHYHOPDQDJHUV ́(Hitt & Ireland, 2002, p.4).
These advocates of strategic leadership at all organizational levels argue WKDWWKHGHPDQGVRIWRGD\¶V
dynamic contexts require a push down for the responsibility of strategic leadership (Crossan et al.,
2008). Ireland and Hitt (1999) argued that leaders must provide group members with sufficient
IOH[LELOLW\WR³WDNHDGYDQWDJHRIcompetitive opportunities that develop rapidly in the new competitive
ODQGVFDSH ́(p.52). Moreover, preliminary findings hinted that this traditional conception of top-level
managers as the primary links to the environment is not supported by empirical studies; for instance
researchers have observed no greater overall scanning activity (which is considered to bea strategic
leadership activity) by top-level managers than by middle managers (Aguilar, 1967; Hambrick, 1981;
Kefalas & Schoderbek, 1973).
Similarly, supervisory leadership may not be the sole domain of managers at lower organizational
levels. Arguments have been put forward that top-level managers have direct reports as well and also
engage in supervisory leadership (Zaccaro, 2001). Tarabishy et al. (2005) suggest that leaders and