Strategic Leadership: Developing a Winning Strategy
Make the hard strategic choices only senior leaders can make, test them before you commit, and win the board, your team and the organisation to a strategy that holds.
What you'll learn
- Describe the distinct roles a strategic leader plays and spot where you are spending time on the wrong ones
- Build a small set of scenarios for your organisation and use them to test decisions and set early warning signposts
- Write a Playing to Win choice cascade for your organisation, from winning aspiration to management systems
- Make and defend hard trade-offs using tools such as 'what would have to be true', the pre-mortem and staged bets
- Plan and run strategic conversations with a board and powerful stakeholders so decisions stick
- Assess the threat of disruption to your business model and set up a response that keeps the core healthy
- Build a guiding coalition and lead change using Kotter's eight steps, adapted to Ghanaian organisations
- Write a strategy narrative and a one-page strategy that people at every level can repeat and act on
Who this course is for
- Chief executives, managing directors and general managers who own the strategy
- Directors and heads of function who sit on an executive committee
- Board members and board committee chairs who approve and challenge strategy
- Senior managers being prepared for executive roles
- Leaders of public bodies, NGOs and family businesses facing a major change of direction
Course content
8 sections · 41 lessons · 7h 10mStart here: welcome to Strategic Leadership 3 lessons · 16 min
Module 1: The strategic leader's mindset and roles 5 lessons · 51 min
Module 2: Reading the environment and planning for several futures 6 lessons · 57 min
Module 3: Playing to Win: the strategy choice cascade 6 lessons · 54 min
Module 4: Hard choices and strategic conversations 5 lessons · 55 min
Module 5: Innovation, disruption and strategic agility 6 lessons · 1h
Module 6: Leading the change and telling the strategy 6 lessons · 1h 3m
Final module: Leading through uncertainty, and what you leave behind 4 lessons · 1h 14m
Before you start
- Experience of managing a team, a function or a business unit
- Working knowledge of basic strategy tools such as SWOT and PESTEL
- Access to your own organisation's current strategy or plan, if you have one, to use in the exercises
About this course
Most senior leaders in Ghana have sat through a strategy retreat that produced a thick document, a new vision statement and very little change. The tools were fine. What was missing was leadership: someone willing to name the real problem, choose between good options, say no to a powerful stakeholder and keep the organisation pointed in one direction when the cedi, the regulator or a new competitor moves the ground.
This course is about that leadership role. It assumes you already know SWOT, PESTEL and the basics of strategic planning, and goes further. You will work with the Playing to Win choice cascade, scenario planning, trade-off tools such as the pre-mortem and 'what would have to be true', Kotter's model for leading change, and the ideas behind disruptive innovation, using cases a Ghanaian director will recognise, including what mobile money did to retail banking.
You will practise the conversations that decide whether a strategy lives or dies: with a sceptical board, with a founder who will not let go, with a management team that agrees in the room and resists in the corridor. Two branching scenarios put you in the chair and let you see the consequences of your calls.
You will finish with a one-page strategy, a strategy narrative you can deliver in five minutes, and a personal 90-day leadership plan in a downloadable workbook. The course takes about seven hours and is written for senior managers, directors, chief executives and board members in companies, banks, public bodies and NGOs.
Your instructor
SkillsPillar Faculty
Practitioners and trainers in strategy, public service, enterprise and workplace compliance
SkillsPillar courses are written by practitioners who have trained graduates, managers, public servants and business owners across Ghana. Every course is built around real situations, practical tools and activities that test judgement, not memory.
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Frequently asked
How do I pay for a course?
Pay securely with MTN MoMo, Telecel Cash, AT Money, Visa or Mastercard through Hubtel. You get access straight after payment.
How long do I have access?
For life. Once you enrol, the course stays in your account and you can learn at your own pace, including any updates we make.
Do I get a certificate?
Yes. Finish every lesson in a course and a certificate is issued automatically. Each one has a QR code and a public link employers can use to check it.
Can I learn on my phone?
Yes. Everything works on a phone, tablet or computer, and your progress follows you between devices.
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