PREFACEPREFACE
T
he purpose of this book is to describe why and how to use the process of
strategy as a form of leadership in colleges and universities. For some time
now, strategy has been seen as one of the major disciplines of management.
I make the claim that it also can be practiced as a systematic process and discipline
of leadership, hence the term “strategic leadership.”
STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP
Although the term “strategic leadership” has appeared frequently in the
literature of management, the military, and higher education, it has not yet devel-
oped a settled meaning (Chaffee 1991; Chaffee and Tierney 1988; Freedman and
Tregoe 2003; Ganz 2005; Goethals, Swenson, and Burns 2004; Morrill 2002; Neu-
mann 1989; Peterson 1997). As understood here, strategic leadership designates
the use of the strategy process as a systematic method of decision making that
integrates reciprocal leadership into its concepts and practices. Strategy is not just
a tool of management used by leaders who hold positions of authority but is as well
a method of interactive leadership that clarifies purposes and priorities, mobilizes
motivation and resources, and sets directions for the future.
Although strategy is relevant in a variety of organizational contexts, the focus
here is on strategic leadership in colleges and universities. Given their distinctive
collegial decision-making culture and systems, the process holds particular prom-
ise for institutions of higher learning. To be sure, leadership is a highly complex
combination of many factors, characteristics, and circumstances that decidedly
cannot be reduced to one dimension or defined by a single method. Nonetheless,