The Leader's Role in Strategic Planning

The Leaders Role in Strategic Planning
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Background 
Leaders establish strategies, organize and direct actions and ensure the set objectives are implemented as part of strategic planning. Additionally, leaders guide and inspire followers to achieve the desired results based on strategic plans. Strategic planning focuses on a company’s current and future market, where decisions are made using internal and external information to analyze a company’s position and to determine the strategic direction. Each organization has a mission, vision, and values that articulate what the organization stands for and addresses the stakeholders’ interests. Planning also prioritizes an organization’s vision, goals, objectives, mission, key priority areas, and business strategies. Making strategic decisions requires a good understanding of the competitive landscape, and leaders play a crucial role in promoting business strategies. This paper focuses on leaders’ role in strategic planning.
Planning process
Planning is essential when setting goals are set and there is a focus on the results to be achieved in the future. Leaders are actively involved in supporting planning efforts linked to an organization’s mission and objectives. Determining the policies, programs, procedures, methods, standards, and strategies is necessary to support planning, decision-making and courses of action. Decisions are made based on the set objectives and plan to achieve the objectives and desired outcomes (Schoemaker, Krupp & Howland, 2013). In strategic planning, the leaders take into consideration future alternatives where objectives are accompanied by effective strategies and resources to actualize the plans and improve competitiveness. In strategic decision-making, internal and external information is used to analyze and evaluate the company’s position to implement an effective action plan.
It is essential to capitalize on leadership skills and think strategically to position the organizations to be more competitive and implement effective strategies in changing business environments. Creating strategic plans and long-range planning are essential in strategic management to allow organizations to respond to changes in the competitive environment (Bryson, 1988). A leader articulates an organization’s vision and mission, and the employees focus on implementing initiatives that address the key priority areas. Engaging in strategic planning requires having a change agent who champions strategic decision-making and a strategic planning team that facilitates the strategic complementation of ideas and plans.
Aligning the organizational culture with the business model is another factor that is considered in strategic planning to facilitate the successful implementation of the strategies. The employees ought to understand the strategies, and the leaders are motivated to support its implementation. Channeling resources and capacities to achieve the strategic objectives is also necessary for strategic planning, where there is also strategy alignment and communication about the strategy. There are different factors affecting the ability to ensure the success of the strategic plan. Based on analysis of these factors, there is communication and feedback to the employees to promote strategic implementation. 
Strategic planning is long-term, and creating an efficient plan is necessary as there is preparation for the future. Preparing for the unexpected is another priority as some risks and opportunities influence the organization’s competitive position. In planning, there is a focus on the future with a clear vision and strategy, and the strategic initiatives reflect expectations about future direction and the desired outcome (Wiita& and Leonard, 2019). The leader undertakes strategic planning considering the risks and how the strategies help solve problems. There are assumptions during the planning process, and since the strategic plans do not remain static, there are modifications when a need arises. Even when there is effective planning, the leader still needs to be directly involved in creating the strategy to meet the objectives and guide others when the plan fails to work as expected.
Implementation
The implementation of the strategies involves all the functions and people in the organization. Leaders are tasked with implementing strategies, but different tasks are carried individually or in groups and teams, where leaders monitor progress. In implementing strategic initiatives, the leaders carefully plan processes to get the desired results. Leaders ought to be committed in promoting action plans to influence and gain support when there is implementation of the strategic plans (Suarez, Calvo-Mora & Roldán, 2016). Implementing a strategy is a continuous process, and improving capabilities is one of the priorities and combined with improving performance, is crucial to achieving the set objectives. When st...