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“Strategy also involves taking a perspective of broader core issues and themes for developments in the school, rather than the detail of thy-to-day imperatives. Initially, It may be helpful to consider strategy as being aligned to strategic thinking and a strategic perspective, rather than just the traditional view of strategy being linked to mechanistic strategic plans. This perspective is taken in this chapter, seeing strategy and strategic planning as distinct concepts, putting forward the idea that strategy involves the development of a series of strategic processes that can ensure the effective development and deployment of strategy through the use of appropriate strategic approaches (p. 104). “Strategic leadership is, therefore, the ability to define the vision and moral purpose, and translate them into action. It is a means of building the direction and the capacity for the organization to achieve that directional shift or change” (p. 104). “There is a danger that, when strategy is seen as a desirable activity; an enormous amount of time is spent designing strategic frameworks and plans. The question should always be, how does this affect practice? How do we translate the framework into the capacity to move towards outcomes that benefit the school? There is a need to continue to have the strategic vision with strategic ability to translate the strategic vision into action” (p.108). “ The strategic leadership challenge of when to make a change can be as significant as what change to make… If leaders waited until all staff were ‘onside’ then the opportunity to change may well have passed by. if leaders move too quickly, without support the change may flounder Judging when both external circumstances and internal conditions can be managed to effect successful change Is a significant ability” (p. 109). “As important as strategic timing is the concept of strategic abandonment. This can be defined as the ability to give up or abandon some activities to create the capacity to undertake the new activity. The difference between abandoning things that are not working well and abandoning those that are satisfactory because there are better ideas to pursue” (p.109). “Leaders are change agents within their organization. They constantly ask questions such as: what are the things that we teach that have been clearly successful or unsuccessful in the past? what accounted for the success or otherwise? what do we need to do In the future that is different? which relationships with students, parents and the wider education system have been particularly successful or unsuccessful, and why? what can we do to change things for the better? How can we fundamentally review what we do to challenge the current pattern of understanding and operation? As a school are we cruising and strolling or are we challenging and creating?” (p.112). “They [leaders] prioritize their own strategic thinking and learning, and build new mental models to frame their own and others’ understanding. This is a significant characteristic of strategic leaders. To envision the future in order to develop new approaches requires both knowledge and experience” (p. 113) “Although not specifically included in Bennett’s comprehensive list, social intelligence is important for strategic leadership because the process of decision-making, solution implementation and organizational improvement is rarely free of emotion. Interpersonal intelligence includes having a thorough understanding of the social context” (p. 117). “The challenge for schools is always to manage the now effectively but also to develop Improved and innovative frameworks for the future. A key approach to developing a more strategic orientation in the school is to enhance the strategic leadership capability in both the senior leadership team and a wider group of staff who provide leadership in wider areas of the school” (p. 118). “Strategic leaders understand the importance of beliefs and values as they are critical to building a vision of how the school is going to develop. Insights on developing the school ace not just built on an understanding of internal factors; they are also predicated on powerful personal and professional networks. These networks assist in interpreting and understanding the wider external environment in which the school operates” (p. 120).