Chapter 6: Findings on the Evolution of Strategic Leadership Models in the Indian Context

The literature review of strategic leadership theories (chapter 2) and strategic leadership models (chapter 3) emphasized the importance of both leadership as well as strategic leadership in business firms (Day, Fleenor, Atwater, Sturm, & McKee, 2014; Dinh, Lord, Gardner, Meuser, Liden & Hu, 2014). In a dynamic, turbulent business environment like that of India, leadership remains as one of the defining factors with respect to the success or failure of business organizations. Apart from traditional aspects like culture, the omnipresence of technology is reshaping dimensions of business leadership. With the advent of social networking sites, internet of things, big data technologies and mobile devices, leaders receive information real time. It is challenging for a leader to navigate the sea of information to make organizational decisions. Decision-making is a key function of a leader. Leaders, through their decisions, set organizational goals to be realized by followers. This is especially true for strategy-level leaders. In emerging economies, the markets are expanding and a strategic leader through his/her leadership actions steers the organization to achieve top-line growth while maintaining the bottom line. In India, the nature of followers is changing. Children born post-1991 are joining Indian business firms as young employees. These young employees had different upbringings from their parents. They had fewer siblings and received more attention from parents. When these kids were growing up, the internet technology was also evolving. Thus, Generation Y is naturally technology-savvy. The internet helped this generation to have easy access to information. Therefore, followers would not seek information from leaders but would like to be guided by leaders’ experience and wisdom. Followers’ characteristics are changing over a period of time. They are becoming more expressive, demanding and would accept change for leaders’ sensible targets. This context led to the need for a study on strategic leadership models and its relevance to India. The authors based their study on the literature on models of strategic leadership characteristics (­Ireland & Hitt, 1999), strategic leadership levels (Mostovicz, ­Kakabadse, & Kakabadse, 2009), transcendent leadership models (­Crossan, Vera, & Nanjad, 2008), strategic leadership stages (Day & Harrison, 2007; Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995), strategic leaders’ belief system (Connell, 2014), behavioural patterns of strategy-level leaders (Srivastava & ­Nachman, 1989), strategic leadership paradoxes (Lewis, Andriopoulos & Smith, 2014) and technology and leadership (Avolio, Kahai, & Dodge, 2001; Avolio & Kahai, 2003; Cascio & Shurygailo, 2003).