About JSL

The Journal of Strategic Leadership (JSL) provides a forum for leadership practitioners and students of strategic leadership around the world by publishing applied articles on topics that enhance knowledge and understanding of the phenomenon of strategic leadership at all levels within a variety of industries and organizations.

The JSL is published in electronic format and provides access to all issues free of charge. [subscribe]

Editor's Note

Strategic leaders are important to the success of individuals and organizations worldwide. While their efforts may sometimes resemble those of cowboys herding cats in an advertisement for EDS, strategic leaders define and encourage remarkable accomplishment.

Strategic leaders are not born; they are nurtured and developed over time. This somewhat unusual issue of the Journal of Strategic Leadership (JSL) explores the development of strategic leadership in young people, women, and North Korean defectors, as noted in articles by Steve Lawson, Diane Chandler, and Hyun Sook Foley. On a more macro scale, we consider how strategic leaders mitigate fear of failure among employees, organize institutions for synchronous development, and bridge the divide between strategic leadership theory and practice in articles by Alan Kuyatt, Kevin Leahy, and John Price.

Author Joseph Jaworski noted, “Leadership is all about the release of human possibilities.” Those presenting in this issue of the Journal of Strategic Leadership (JSL) put forth concepts that explain how such important leaders are ultimately developed and sustained.

— Dr. Gary Oster, Editor

Please Note

Views and opinions expressed in the articles published in the Journal of Strategic Leadership (JSL) represent each author's research and viewpoint and do not necessarily represent JSL or its sponsors. JSL and its sponsors make no representations about the accuracy of the information contained in published manuscripts and disclaims any and all responsibility or liability resulting from the information contained in the JSL.

What Women Bring to the Exercise of Leadership
Diane Chandler  

Since the 1970s, women have steadily emerged in leadership roles in all societal spheres. Women bring to the exercise of leadership an arsenal of strengths, which increasingly are received to benefit the entities they lead on local, national, and global levels. Women’s leadership styles have been shown to be more transformational, participative, and inclusive than the leadership styles of their male counterparts. According to the results of a 2008 Pew Research initiative studying whether men or women make better leaders, participants rated women over men by five-to-one in the top eight leadership characteristics, including honesty and intelligence. Although women are filling more managerial positions, they have yet to emerge in the top executive leadership positions. Therefore, this paper explores three primary areas: (1) women’s leadership emergence, (2) ways women lead, and (3) benefits of women’s leadership. Research grounds each of these three foci by highlighting women’s leadership contributions inclusive of ethical moorings; peace-building; social change; and business and media entrepreneurship and innovation. With women making such substantive contributions in the exercise of leadership, the paper concludes with the rhetorical question, “Why not women?” in hopes of reinforcing a paradigm of women and men serving together for maximum benefit.
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Unifying Leadership: Bridging the Theory and Practice Divide
John Price          

A constant tension exists in the leadership community between the supposed disparate worlds of theory and practice. The growing chasm between concept and context causes consternation on both sides, yet there is little action to span the divide. While there are numerous obstacles to closing this gap, an examination of a parallel relationship in the Christian realm of faith and works reveals the intermediary role of reason in bringing the conceptual and practical worlds together. This model reveals the need for a clearly defined middle span of analysis, bringing concepts into specific context, to connect the sides of leadership theory and practice. This leadership analysis, a discipline often covered by leadership consultants and coaches, is the collaborative forum to connect the two worlds. Analysis resurrects the importance of theory in the life of the leader, and it provides a feedback mechanism for theorists to improve their concepts. Through the employment of this construct, the theory-practice divide may still exist, but only by individual consent and inaction, not because it must.
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From One “Great Leader” to Many Leaders who are Truly Great: Leadership Training for North Korean Defectors
Hyun Sook Foley       

This article explores Ju-che, the official ideology of North Korea, as an intentional inhibitor of leadership development among North Korean citizens. Ju-che is best understood as a religion idolizing Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il, who are identified as the “mind” of North Korea, with citizens serving as the body and as “human bombs” sworn to protect the Kims. The Confucian concept of “hyo,” or filial piety, is reconceived to apply no longer to biological parents but only to the Kims as the progenitors of a new and eternal revolutionary family—one where civic adolescence and obedience are extolled and independent choice is vilified. A growing number of defectors to South Korea form a leadership laboratory for studying how North Koreans can be equipped to grow to their full potential as leaders. Attempts to swap the Ju-che ideology for a different leadership theory will be insufficient, since Ju-che is a comprehensive worldview. Though unemployment is high and professional employment is low among defectors, training programs like Seoul USA’s Underground University suggest that a comprehensive strategy of teaching leadership from within the Ju-che framework rather than discarding or ignoring it may prove most effective in promoting leadership growth among North Koreans.
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Managing For Innovation: Reducing The Fear Of Failure
Alan Kuyatt       

Organizations today face the problem that innovations are quickly arising from all over the world and changing the marketplace, with the pace of innovation and change increasing. Radical innovations are causing creative destruction in the marketplace and forcing out established products and services faster and faster. Management is mainly responsible for success or failure, so they must find ways to increase innovation, especially radical innovation, within the organization. One significant method of doing this is to reduce the fear of failure, which is caused by negative management reactions to both radical innovation and failures from attempts at risky new ideas. That fear of failure inhibits innovation by hiding failures, suppressing new ideas, and avoiding risky concepts. Leadership practices that discourage innovation must be replaced with ones that encourage innovation, including accepting risk, viewing failure as a learning opportunity, allowing sufficient time for innovative ideas to develop, and encouraging champions to help overcome resistance and find resources. Management needs to make the organization an ambidextrous operation that can continue to improve the efficiency of current products and services with incremental innovation, while simultaneously encouraging the discovery, adoption, and implementation of radical innovations, without the fear of failure, to increase the organization’s ability to be competitive.
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Whoop! What the church can learn about values and organizational culture from Texas A&M
Steve Lawson         

Can the church actually make a difference in a community at a time when many people have given up on religion, business and government? Christians often see the job of the church as “getting people saved” and “taking care of the flock.” What if we were intended for more than that? What if it was possible to actually create, influence and sustain culture rather than just adapt to it? This paper will explore the success behind one of the strongest cultures in Texas – Texas A&M University. For more than a century, the Texas “Aggies” have built an environment based on strong core values and unchanging traditions. They have a unique ability to quickly assimilate freshmen and produce young men and women with a radical commitment to the school and to each other that lasts a lifetime. This qualitative study, based on interviews with two leaders, offers recommendations on how the church might strengthen its own internal culture, as well as position itself to influence its community.
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The Synchronous Development Model: Insights into Leadership and Organization Design for Improved Product and Process Innovation
Kevin Leahy     

Advanced product-based technology organizations face the challenge of leading rapid product technology innovation while maintaining a focus on market demands, competitive pressures, rapid globalization, operational efficiency, and product delivery costs and schedule. Management science provides scholarly theories of organizational design to effectively manage innovation. Technical management theories provide models for understanding the life cycle of both products and markets for leading successful innovation projects. The combination of models from both disciplines can provide useful insights to address the challenges of product-based companies faced with the need to encourage and capitalize on continuous innovation. This article presents a new model derived from the combination of management and technical sciences, providing a framework for additional research into the optimal design of modern product-based technology companies.
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