hindsight appears to have been relative stability. Research called for organizations to be more flexible,
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environment (Orchard, 1998). Many make the point that the rate and complexity of change was
rapidly increasing and becoming an integral aspect of organizational effectiveness, rather than a
periodic necessity (Kotter, 1996). Researchers (Judge et al., 2002; Judge & Piccolo, 2004; Keller,
2006; McGrath & MacMillan, 2000) started to explore the strategic role of leadership in improving
organizational performance.
While Hitt et al. (2002) referred to strategic leadership as an ability, Hambrick and Mason (1984)
conceptualized strategic leadership in terms of characteristics of top-level managers and/or the
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researchers to empirically investigate the impact of chief executive officer (CEO) characteristics and
top management team (TMT) composition with respect to dimensions such as personality, values,
tenure, gender, ethnic background and age on a myriad of organizational outcomes (Boerner et al.;
Carpenter et al., 2004; Tihanyi et al., 2000). With respect to CEO research, links have been traced
between, for instance CEO tenure, locus of control and need for achievement, on the one hand, and
firm rigidity, innovative behavior and organizational performance on the other (Boone et al., 1996;
Miller, 1991; Miller & Toulouse, 1986; Musteen et al., 2006). With respect to TMT composition
research, the focus has generally been on the impact of the mean and the spread (i.e. diversity) of
these characteristics (Boone et al., 2005).
Only limited success KDVEHHQDWWDLQHGXVLQJ³GHPRJUDSKLF ́YDULDEOHVWRSUHGLFWDVSHFWVRIVWUDWHJLF
decision making and performance. Boal and Hooijberg (2000) ZHQWVRIDUDVWR³FDOODPRUDWRULXPRQ
WKHXVHRIGHPRJUDSKLFYDULDEOHVVXFKDVVXUURJDWHVIRUSV\FKRVRFLDOFRQVWUXFWV ́(p.523). Priem, Lyon
and Dess (1999) were likewise critical about the use of such data in strategic leadership research,
raising questions about their meaning and construct validity. At the outset, Hambrick et al. (1984)
recognized the limitations of demographic and background variables in WKDWWKH\³PD\FRQWDLQPRUH
QRLVH WKDQ SXUHU SV\FKRORJLFDO PHDVXUHV ́(p.196) WKDW LV ³SV\FKRORJLFDO PHDVXUHV ZHUH VHHQ DV
potentially more direct in terms of revealing the types of CEO values, beliefs and behavioral
incliQDWLRQVUHOHYDQWWRVWUDWHJ\IRUPDWLRQDQGSHUIRUPDQFH LHWRILOOLQWKH³EODFNER[ ́FUHDWHGE\
DQH[FOXVLYHIRFXVRQGHPRJUDSKLFDQGEDFNJURXQGYDULDEOHV ́(Finkelstein & Hambrick, 1996, p.46).
Despite of the awareness of limited usability of demographic proxies for strategic leadership, there is
still no alternative theoretically derived measure for strategic leadership. The lack of a good measure
of strategic leadership has deterred further substantive research in this area.