6

CHAPTERCHAPTER

Integral Strategy: Narratives and

Identity in Strategic Leadership

W

e have defined the broad organizational context in which strategy will
do its work and examined some of the tools and concepts that it needs
to become an integrated process of leadership. Ultimately, though,
strategic leadership is indispensably a matter of practice. It must enact its designs
and use its tools. Part III will focus on the practices of a systematic and integrated
strategy process. The current chapter opens with a sketch of the elements of stra-
tegic leadership as a summary and a prospectus. Then, we turn to the core of our
conceptual model by focusing on both the significance and the use of narratives
of identity in strategic leadership.

INTEGRATING STRATEGY AND LEADERSHIP

We are proposing the formulation of a collaborative process and discipline of
strategic leadership. It pretends to be neither a science nor a discrete method of
discovering knowledge. Rather, it is an integrative and applied discipline of deci-
sion making. Although different from them, it has parallels with other disciplines
of decision making such as management, which aims to integrate knowledge with
decisions and actions. It also has clear similarities with fields like the creative
and performing arts and applied psychology. These practical fields use rigorous
concepts and systematic methods to engage with human agency and experience,
which they intend to influence and enrich but cannot fully objectify and con-
trol. As an integrative discipline, strategic leadership relies on interdisciplinary
knowledge and insights about leadership and human experience and uses a vari-
ety of methods of empirical and conceptual inquiry. As an applied discipline,
it uses systematic methods in developing strategies, making decisions, and taking