Personal Leadership Development as a Strategic Manager

This document discusses personal leadership development as a strategic manager. It covers the needs, goals, and aspirations of organizations and people involved in international organization strategy. It also explores the strategic skills required for a leader to achieve identified strategic leadership ambitions and provides opportunities and a personal development plan for strategic leadership development.

Personal Leadership Development as a
Strategic Manager

Contents
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................3
Task 1..........................................................................................................................................................3
1.1 Needs, Goals and aspiration of organisation and people involved in international organisation
strategy....................................................................................................................................................3
1.2 Strategic skills required for a leader to achieve identified strategic leadership ambitions.................4
1.3 Relationship between existing, required and future skills to achieve the identified strategic
leadership ambitions................................................................................................................................5
Task 2..........................................................................................................................................................6
2.1 Opportunities to achieve strategic leadership development...............................................................6
2.2 Personal development plan to achieve strategic leadership development..........................................7
Implementation process for the development plan...................................................................................9
Task 3........................................................................................................................................................10
3.1 assess the achievement of outcomes of the plan against strategic needs..........................................10
3.2 impact of the achievement of objectives on strategic leadership ambitions.....................................11
3.3 review and update the leadership development plan........................................................................12
Task 4........................................................................................................................................................14
4.1 the extent to which the strategic needs of organisations involved in international organisational
strategy are met from existing resources................................................................................................14
4.2 Formulate proposals to develop the strategic leadership resource....................................................15
4.3 evaluate the effectiveness of strategic leadership development in achieving advancement of
professional leadership practices in organisations.................................................................................15
CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................................................16
REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................................17

INTRODUCTION
Personal Development in Strategic Management. Strategic manager is an individual who has
good leadership qualities to bring change according to an environment and to operate at
a strategic level. They are the one who takes the necessary decisions, set goals and strategies to
win over existing and potential competitors. Inditex which goes for Industria de Diseño Textil,
S.A. is a Spanish multinational clothing company headquartered in Arteixo in Galicia. Inditex,
the biggest fashion group in the world, operates over 7,200 stores in 93 markets worldwide. This
report contains topics such as needs, goals and aspiration of the company in terms of the strategy
for international organization. Skills which are required by the leader to identify the ambitions.
Relationship between skills that are achieved, required and future skills. Opportunities to achieve
development, personal development plan to achieve the development of leadership and process
of implementation of development plan. Achievement of outcomes of the plan, impact of the
achievement of objectives on strategic leadership ambitions and update the leadership plan.
Other than this strategic needs of the company in the organizational strategy. Proposals to
develop the resource of strategic leadership and evaluate the effectiveness of professional
leadership (Heslin and Keating, 2017).
Task 1
1.1 Needs, Goals and aspiration of organisation and people involved in international
organisation strategy
Needs goals and aspirations reflect through vision and mission of the company and on the
basis of that some of the needs, goals and aspirations of Inditex are to satisfy desires of the
customers and continuously innovate to improve experience of customers.
Inditex and its people also work for providing new designs which are made of quality
material which are affordable (Bilgin, Bilgin and Kilinc, 2017). These are goals and ambition of
Inditex and its people but along with this one of the need of Inditex and its people is that they
contribute to sustainability of society and environment with which they interact.
Organisations have their needs, goals and ambition and these becomes needs, ambition
and goals of people who are involved in international organisation strategy. These elements are

important as needs of the organisation are those which are essential for the organisation to have
in order to maintain its position in the market. Goals are those which organisation determines to
achieve in a particular time and aspirations are those which organisation and its people want to
achieve. Inditex and its people have all these because Inditex is biggest fashion group in the
world and this is require that organisation have clearly outlined goals and ambitions regarding
success. International organisation strategy refers to strategy of the organisation in its
international operational context. Inditex is a international organisation operating in 93 markets
worldwide, while Inditex gets affected by all these factors these can be identified and analysed
with STEEPV framework. This Framework analyses social, technological, economical,
environmental, political and values factors of Inditex. Social environment is most important
regarding goals and aspirations of Inditex because centre of its all work are people and this is
why social factors which is mainly made by the customers of the company affects the
organisation and its goals. Other than social environmental factor is important for Inditex
because they aim to contribute to sustainable development of society and that of environment
(Shao, 2019). Although these are only factors which directly affect and are part of goals and
ambitions of Inditex but technological, political and economic factor are important factors which
affect practices and achievement of goals and ambitions of Inditex. The framework STEEPV
also involve values in it and values are known as belief of Inditex and are basis for all its
activities and they way look at world and considers what is right for the world from their view.
Values of Inditex on the basis of which they achieve their goals and those values which are part
of their working, these values are teamwork, humility, diversity, commitment and the goal of a
job well done.
1.2 Strategic skills required for a leader to achieve identified strategic leadership
ambitions
Inditex is an international organisation and along with that biggest fashion group in the
world and this requires organisation to take several strategic decisions in order to achieve
strategic ambitions stated above. Achievement of this strategic ambition requires that leader
takes several decisions and because Inditex is an international organisation leader requires
having several strategic skills. Some of the strategic activities which Inditex requires to do are
merger and acquisition, selection of partner and supplier. These are important strategies activities

in context of Inditex. To achieve these strategic ambitions leader of the organisation requires
some of the skills which are anticipating challenge, strategies are not without challenge and this
requires that leader has a skill to anticipate challenges. Leader is required to possess this skill so
that challenges can be identified by the organisation and later measures can be taking to manage
and deal with challenges. Be decisive is another skill required for leader to attain strategic
ambitions. This is important that leader take decision and this means leader should be having
skill to balance speed of decision making along with precision and analysis of different aspects
of decision (Kabetu and Iravo, 2018). This is important that along with combining all the
information and data related to decision it is taken with speed. This is because decisions not
taken on time may lose their value.
Align different opinions is another skill required for leader and specially for leader of
Inditex because this is an international company and along with that there are several brands
under this company. This requires taking decision that are suitable for all the brands under the
Inditex. Present operations of Inditex suggest that this skill is effectively being possessed and
used by leader.
Other than some of the skills that leader which leader will require in future for achieving
strategic ambition is interpretation of ambiguous data, this skill will be required because of
availability of lots of data and correct decision requires that this is properly interpreted and
understood.
1.3 Relationship between existing, required and future skills to achieve the identified
strategic leadership ambitions
In order to achieve identifies strategic leadership ambitions which are successful merger
and acquisition and accurate decision related to suppliers and partners. Other than this factors
which affect achievement of vision and mission is also strategic ambition of leader and requires
that leader has all the required skills (Fuda and Winn, 2017). Leader at Inditex possess several
skills and attributes such as being decisive, alignment of different and anticipation of challenges.
These skills are not only required for leader but leader of Inditex also possess these skills. Other
than this challenge view point is another skill which is possessed by leader at Inditex. This
reflects through the decisions which are made by Inditex and its brands. Their unique business
model and effectiveness of operations is result of their challenge viewpoint.

These are existing skills and required skills other than these, skill which are required by
leader in future is interpretation of ambiguous data. This has becomes use of big data is
constantly increasing and this is important for success of business and its operations in present
and will increase in future (Owen, 2017). This is related to existing skills in a way that decisions
are required to be based on data available and in future this will remain same but data will
become ambiguous.
Task 2
2.1 Opportunities to achieve strategic leadership development
To achieve strategic ambitions this is important that leader has strategic skills that can
contribute in attainment of strategic ambitions. Strategic leadership development opportunities
allow individual to learn and acquire skills which are required for strategic leadership.
Opportunities for achieve strategic leadership development refers to ways in which individual
can develop strategic leadership skill. Leadership skills involves several skills which are
communication, interpersonal, emotional intelligence and several other behavioural, human and
technical skill but strategic leadership involves leadership skills which are beyond this general
skills (Norzailan, Yusof and Othman, 2016). Opportunities for development of strategic skills
involves that individual learn and develop these skills through various different ways available.
The skills selected for development are skills to create and develop multiple paths through which
leader can raise and test ideas. This is a strategic skill and this can be developed through
assistance of seniors and mentors as they are experienced and can advocate about ways in which
leader can raise and test ideas. Other skills are development of experience based learning,
opportunity of development of skill relies in experience and leader has to develop skill to learn
from experiences. Strategic hiring is a human resource management skills and opportunity for
development of this skill is in learning strategic human resources and strategic hiring skills (Nye,
2017). There are several means available from which individual can develop this strategic
leadership skill.
Strategic leadership development will provide several opportunities for leader through
which they can attain strategic ambition and objectives of organisation.

2.2 Personal development plan to achieve strategic leadership development
This plan being designed involves development plan of strategic skills which are required
for leader to possess in future. This is because strategic leadership development involves critical
and complex skills for leader which are used by leader to achieve strategic objectives (Covin and
Slevin, 2017). Above strategic skills possessed by leader of Inditex suggests that there are
several strategic leadership are required to be developed. Development plan for them is as
follows;
Strategic Leadership
Skill
Aim for development of skill Time for skill
development
Creation of multiple
paths for raising and
testing ideas
This is an important skill because
presently because of competition
leaders are required to take calculated
risk over ideas they apply and
implement in the organisation. This
requires that for calculating risk
associated with ideas leader are able to
create more than one path to create and
test ideas for organisational strategies
and their achievement. Development of
this skill will help in becoming a
strategic leader and this will also help in
avoiding strategic and big failures
which can significantly affect the
success and operations of the
organisation. This skill is important for
safe failure.
10-12 months
(though this skill require
long time to develop
completely and
efficiently but this time
can help in developing
initial requirement for
this skill)
Developing skill for
experience based
learning
This skill is required so to ensure that
experience can be utilized in best
manner. This will ensure that positive
and successful experience can be
repeated and negative and failed
5-6 months (this time for
developing this skill to
enable leader to get
knowledge of all the
aspects of experience

experience is avoided by leader (Belias
and et.al., 2017). This is also important
for strategic leadership. This is most
importantly required during merger and
acquisition and big decisions similar to
this.
based learning and how
leader can enable them
to learn on the basis of
learning)
Strategic hiring Regardless of competency and skills of
leader, this is an important aspect of
leadership that they are aware of people
who can contribute in achievement of
strategic ambitions of organisation and
leadership. Strategic hiring will ensure
that leader has support of competent and
efficient personnel in the organisation
having all the required skills and
competency.
10-12 months
Skill for Interpretation
of ambiguous data
This is another skills required for
strategic leadership. This is because
data has become important part of
strategic decisions interpretation of
simple data is possible to do without
any specific skill but ambiguous data
requires that leader has skill to do that.
This is why leaders should be well
aware with the ways in which they can
interpret ambiguous data to ensure
accurate and qualitative decision
making.
10-12 months

Implementation process for the development plan
This development plan for strategic leadership involves skills that are required for
strategic leadership for leader to achieve strategic ambition of organisation and leadership as
well (Dyer and Dyer, 2017). This is why the implementation process for the plan of development
will be as follows;
Strategic Leadership
Skills to be developed
Implementation of development Plan
Creation of multiple
paths for raising and
testing ideas
This is an important skills and as well as critical too. This is why this
is a strategic skill that leaders are required to develop for their
strategic leadership. This skill cannot be completely learned and
developed because its significant development happens when the
skill is required to be applied. This means that only when leader
requires developing paths that time they can develop this skill.
Initially development of this skill will involve how and in what
manner leaders can develop different paths for developing and testing
ideas and this will be learned through workshops and classes for
leadership development.
Developing skill for
experience based
learning
This is a strategic skill but this is skill of behaviour nature and this is
why this requires time. This skill will be developed by learning order
to how and what process is required for experience based learning.
This can be also learned through workshops for leadership
development.
Strategic hiring This skill is along with leadership skill is also an human resource
skills and this can be achieved and acquired through strategic human
resource management skills.
Skill for Interpretation
of ambiguous data
Increasing importance of data in organisations and business has led
to development of various programmes through which one can learn
about interpretation of ambiguous data. Strategic leadership also
requires to have this skill and leader can develop this through one of
this programme for data interpretation.

Task 3
3.1 assess the achievement of outcomes of the plan against strategic needs
Strategic planning process
Mission and objectives
The mission and vision describes the purpose of the company which helps them to pursue
goals and take a grasp at future opportunities. Leaders of the company can assess the factors
which can guide the path to the strategic objectives and aspects of finances. Objectives related to
finances are concerned with achieving sales and growth. On the other hand strategic objectives
are concerned with the position of the company such as share in the market and its goodwill.
Environmental scanning-
This factor is concerned with examining of environment on both internal as well as
external basis so that all the deviations can be taken out.
Formulation of strategy-
On the basis of the scan done Inditex must compare and match the strength and
opportunities of the company with the threats and weakness of the company. In order to earn
profits at high levels company needs to earn the benefit of competitive advantage (Wong, 2017)
Implementation of strategy-
The strategy selected by the company which is continuous innovation needs to be
implemented in this process of budget, procedure and involves the resources that are useful for
the company to achieve their objectives. It needs to be ensured that the strategy implemented is
done in the right manner as it leaves an impact which states that it will be successful or not. If the
strategy is somehow misunderstood then it will affect the business of the company in a negative
manner (Garavan and et.al., 2016).
Evaluation and control-

In order to keep the strategy successful it is necessary that the company monitors over it
on a continuous basis. This will also help them to maintain the necessary changes in order to
ensure the venture to be successful.
3.2 impact of the achievement of objectives on strategic leadership ambitions
With the help of gap analysis Inditex will be able to assess their previous performance
and take out the differences which is affecting the company to reach its potential in terms of
performance. This way company will be able to take steps which are necessary in order to reach
the position and achieve their goals. There are methods to comply a gap analysis.
Current state-
This aspect is concerned with assessing the current state and focus on the areas which can
help the company to target their entire operations of business. The focus on the area which needs
to be done by the company can be quantitative and qualitative with the diversity of the workplace
(Kolbjørnsrud, Amico and Thomas, 2016).
Future state-
This aspect highlights those objectives which Inditex wants to achieve such as working
and focusing on making the culture of office more inclusive or target more consumers so that
more sales can be achieved and there is increase in level of profits.
Other than this Inditex also needs to take a look at the factors which are considered as
critical success such as
Industry factors-
This aspect states that company needs to continue there strategies and update it in a
timely manner in order to remain in the list of competition with other companies. For instance
offering high range of products at low cost (Hickman and Akdere, 2018).
Environmental factors-
These aspects are concerned with the forces which are related with the environmental
factors and which influences the company in a negative manner in ways such as economy, level
of competition and advancements in technology.

Strategic factors-
The strategy that is implemented by the company in their culture helps the company to
tap different markets which company needs to enter and serve in. Also with this Inditex can
position themselves in the right manner (Lalleman and et.al., 2017).
Temporal factors-
These factors are derived from the changes that are internal and when the growth is
focused for short term goals. There are some specific barriers in this aspect such as challenges,
influences and direction. For instance if the business is expanding its operations on a huge level
then the critical success factors will be the achievement of international sales.
These factors of are complied from the mission and objectives of the strategic goals of the
company, and with the help of critical success factors companies such as Inditex can easily
achieve it. If the company is successful in identifying their successful factor which is relevant to
their strategy then they will be able to achieve it. In order to measure the performance of the
company they need to use Key performance indicator as they are specific in nature and with the
help of this metric they will be able to assess the performance.
3.3 review and update the leadership development plan
Strategic
leadership skills to
be developed
Updated leadership development plan Time required for up
gradation
Strategic hiring Even if it is the main area of HR department of
the company, leaders of the company needs to
evaluate the employees in a timely manner and
hire them on the basis of framework of STEEPV
as there are many factors and guidelines which
are needed to be followed according to this
framework such as providing the minimum wage
which is imposed by the law or hire the
employees through proper and legal aspects
(Cullen-Lester, Maupin and Carter, 2017).
5 to 6 months will be
required.

Developing skills
for experience
based learning
Inditex has been working with approaches that
are traditional as this aspects takes times to dealt
with. Now the leaders of the company needs to
update their method with the help of
technological factors as this way they can share
and pass on more knowledge which is required to
work in the company and according to dealing
with the stakeholders. Also this will help the
company to leave the old and traditional
methods.
3 to 4 months
Skills for
interpretation of
ambiguous data
This is a necessary aspect as in order to interfere
and interpret with the data that is ambiguous
company requires highly trained and skilled
workers. In order to work according to new
methods company needs to follow the framework
of STEEPV as their value factors will help the
company to determine which employee will turn
out as valuable for the company and which
employee will not.
6 to 8 months.
Creation of paths
which leads to
ideas for testing
This aspect and skills in the plan of development
is considered as important because the company
needs those people who can work according to
the social and environmental factors in order to
sustain the forces of environment and comply
with the beliefs of people. It is in the hands of
leaders to develop this skill according to the
resources of the company. If this is done on the
basis of STEEPV framework then they will be
able to do an analysis of the external
environment which will help them to reduce the
risk and increase the possibility of success in
8 to 9 months.

terms of achievement of goals.
Task 4
4.1 the extent to which the strategic needs of organisations involved in international
organisational strategy are met from existing resources
The viable system model was made for identifying the problems which affected the
business of the companies and to help them so that companies such as Inditex can redesign the
process and systems used in the company. This model was formed on the basis of variety and in
order to implement a better strategy company needs to offer and increase the level of production
of more varieties in their style of clothing. This way the company can deal with the forces of
environment that disrupts the flow of business. It enables the system that is known as self
organising and in order to function it they need to purpose of the company that is mission and
vision it needs to be viable. There are three elements for proper functioning of it such as
operations, management and environment. The entire base of system will not be able to function
if any of gets unstable. Also this model has many systems under it such as implementation,
coordination, control, intelligence and policy (Heizmann and Liu, 2018).
There is a law of requisite variety which the company needs to keep in mind and that is
control of the aspect can only be gained when the variety of the controller is as same as the
variety of the situation in order to be controlled. It states that channels which are used in the
company for communication must have the variety as it is believed that it is required to manage
the transmissions. Also Inditex needs to make sure that their channels are capable of holding
higher varieties. For instance if the senior level of management of Inditex has stated a policy for
the management of operations then it needs to be ensured that it is properly communicated to
other in the company so that there are less errors in the stages of production (Rubens and et.al.,
2018).
This way company can effectively manage their brand, liquidity and improve the level of
customer experience.

4.2 Formulate proposals to develop the strategic leadership resource
Development on the basis of strategic leadership development is taken under the
management of risk which also helps to ensure that the operations maintained by the company is
viable or not. Companies such as Inditex can easily fill the gap which can be easily fulfilled if
they have implemented the right and effective strategies. In order to develop the strategy for the
leaders of the company it is necessary that targets of the company are highlighted on the basis of
actual performance of the company as sometimes this help to boost and forces the leaders of the
company to focus on the right areas and implement a effective strategy for the cause. The
strategic leadership is aligned to the achievement of goals of the company as if they are not
effective then they will not be able to achieve them and company will loose the image of the
brand in the market. Other than this there are many other ways in which the company can
develop the resource of strategic leadership. Mergers between Indetix and some other company,
Takeover by Indetix to another company or they can develop partnership on strategic basis with
their suppliers which can help the company to enhance the level of operations. These are the
factors of inter organizational strategy. There are other aspects by which leadership strategies can
be developed but in order to do that company needs to evaluate every factors such as
 Assess the risk factors of the company
 Establish an ongoing base which prevails succession
 Take the help of strategic planning which is done so that future of the leadership can be
assessed.
 Necessary to invest in the development of staff and members of board.
 Establish a review on annual basis.
 Regular board meetings need to be conduct which is about self evaluation.
 Also evaluate the performance and the level of potential of employees and
 Conduct development for ongoing staff and recruitment for others.
4.3 evaluate the effectiveness of strategic leadership development in achieving advancement of
professional leadership practices in organisations.
Strategic leadership development will be considered as effective when they are able to
plan for the company on both the levels that is national and international as it is very complex to
maintain the operations on both the levels and only with the strategic planning they will be able
to achieve leadership practices against it. There are some ways such as critical success factors

which can be suitable in this condition. There are many factors such which the leaders of Inditex
needs to consider such as industrial, strategic, temporal and environmental. These factors will
help the leaders of the company to take decision by evaluating all the outcomes so that they can
work with less risk and they are able to serve in the market with less complexity. Also leaders of
the company needs to monitor their own performance with the performance of the company
against the goals they have targeted with the help of key performance indicator so that they can
maintain their share in the market and substantially increase it (Hall and Rowland, 2016).
CONCLUSION
From the above studies it has been concluded that Inditex needs to work according to the
framework of STEEPV so that external analysis can be assessed and the company is able to work
under the forces of environment. This will help the company to reduce the level of risk and work
for the increased possibility of success. Also company needs to implement strategies for the
improvement of leadership. This report has also highlighted the development plan of leadership
with its implementation and measures that are needed to be updated under it so that they can plan
strategically and effectively for the company which will help them to achieve their goals and
objectives. Other than this different strategies and models has been used in order to assess the
factor of strategic planning and effective leadership development such as viable system model
with law of requisite variety, gap analysis to reach the goals they have set for the company by
making better decisions to improve their current state. Also factors of critical success and Key
performance indicator have been highlighted in the report. These factors will help Inditex to
maintain their overall share in the market and achieve their goals and objectives by measuring
their performance consistently.

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