Knowledge Update

Article Written by Eman Ali Ahli, MBA Student

The transition from the operational level to the strategic level is an important process that every leader needs to overcome. It involves many challenges. Many leaders face difficulty to pass this step and they fail to overcome it. Due to the rapid changes in the business environment and the growing competition and changing attitudes of employees from one generation to other generation, it is necessary for organizations to develop strategic leaders who are able to formulate and implement strategies which deliver the desired results to achieve sustainability.  In contrast to operational leadership, whose role is limited to managing only the day-to-day operations, leaders who transform from operational leadership to strategic leadership need to play different types of roles to achieve long-term strategic results. This will help their organizations to grow and gain competitive advantage. It will also help them to implement the change management process easily and quickly. The importance of each role depends on the status of the business that the leader is associated with. The strategic leader generally plays nine roles in the organization while displaying his leadership style.

These nine roles of the top strategic leadership are:  

1.Navigator— In this role, the leader works quickly and clearly to deal with difficulties, solves problems and takes advantage of various opportunities to influence existing work and people. The Navigator role of the leader makes the leader to analyze a large amount of conflicting information, understand the root cause of the problems and identify the feasible and optimal solutions.

 2. Strategist— The strategist role of the leader enables the leader to develop a long-term strategy and set targets to match the vision of an organization. The strategy is focused on creation of future plans and required actions immediately. The strategist role enables the leader to provide a direction to the organization to achieve the desired vision. 

3. Entrepreneur­— In this role, the leader acts an entrepreneur. He/she identifies and takes advantage of opportunities and expands business by creating innovative products, services or markets. Thinking like an entrepreneur and owner of the organization, the leader generates new ideas, takes advantage of opportunities or proposals and transforms them into a new path. The leader develops the ability to solve problems easily through his acumen and shrewdness and creates a new style of leadership.

 4. Mobilizer— Playing the role of mobilizer, the strategic leader mobilizes all kinds of resources and develops teams and partners to work with them by leveraging the synergy of wide variety of talent. Also, he / she builds a capacity that allows rapid implementation of work in order to achieve complex objectives.

 5. Talent advocate - In this role, the strategic leader identifies talented and skillful employees, internally and externally and stays in touch with them to tap their talent as and when required. He / she creates a culture of talent development by encouraging innovative ideas, by providing training, by empowering the talented employees to reach their highest possible abilities.

 6. Captivator— Playing the role of a captivator, the strategic leader continues to build confidence among employees, and creates positive feelings and a culture of belongingness. In this role, the leader converts the talent of employees into a useful outcome for the organization. Also, he convinces employees to accept his leadership style, synchronizes it with the vision of the organization and empowers them achieve the vision.

7. Global thinker— The other important role played by the strategic leader is as a global thinker. The leader understands and respects all types of diversity in the organization and designs the strategies and action keeping the diversity factor in mind. He thinks from a very high macro level perspective and keeps identifying global opportunities.

8. Change driver— Organizations need to adapt to the dynamic business environment by making changes on a continuous basis. The strategic leader plays an important role as a change driver. The leader creates and develops change management strategies and evolves techniques to make the employees accept the changes from time to time. The leader convinces the employees by projecting the fruitful outcomes of the changes.

9. Enterprise guardian - In this role, the strategic leader acts as an enterprise guardian. He / She keeps a constant check on the status of the organization by keenly observing the business environment and guards the enterprise from any disturbances. The leader refuses to negotiate over long-term gains. He / She takes bold and wise decisions with courage and risk taking attitude for a long-term benefit to the organization. The leader takes the onus of failure and shares the success with all the employees. Keeps away from emotions and personal relationships when it comes to the achievement of results. He / She becomes popular in the organization and outside by taking bold, useful but unpopular decisions.  It is essential to develop the leaders with the above abilities in every organization. Management institutions like Skyline University, an accredited university in UAE offering MBA courses, BBA courses and diploma courses in Sharjah have a key role in inculcating such leadership traits right from the college days among the management students to enable them to grow and become strategic leaders in future.  

By: Mr. Haftamu Menker Gebre Yohannes

Instructor of Mathematics

Skyline University College, Sharjah College, UAE

 It is the responsibility of the teacher to actively involve his or her students in the learning process.  The most important thing he or she should do is to avoid giving clear, concise, organized lectures. If the presentation of a lesson is too easy to follow, most of the class will not need to learn the new material on their own.  They will have a certain degree of confidence in their new knowledge, and this will tend to stifle their intellectual pursuits.  If, on the other hand, the lecture is vague, rambling and disorganized, the students will leave with their heads full of questions. In fact, they will be so filled with curiosity that they will try to expand their knowledge on their own. There are many ways to present a thought provoking lecture.  One of the easiest techniques to use is a foreign accent. If the accent is thick enough, even a well-organized lecture will produce expressions of intellectual wonder among the students.  Effective accents can be acquired in Alabama, China, India, Latin America, New York City, Germany, or any foreign country.

For individuals who cannot speak anything but perfect Midwestern English, this technique may offer difficulties.  There are two possible solutions:  (1) one can teach in a foreign country or at least in Rome, or Paris; or (2) one can incorporate a new syllable into one's language.  Two very effective syllables to use are "um" and "uh".  The chosen syllable should be uttered every second or third word.  This reduces the possibility that any coherent concept will be given to the class.  For example, one can say, "Um, today, u...m, we will be, um, discussing, um...um, determinants."  After a couple of sentences, most of the class will be staring at their watches or out the windows.  Very quickly, they will become very anxious to go out and learn the material on their own.

  In addition, to being aware of one's own speech patterns, the teacher should also pay close attention to the written word.  Effective use of the blackboard should be considered almost a necessity.  Illegible handwriting can stimulate a student's interest in new material almost as effectively as incoherent lectures.  Often students will meet outside of class to exchange interpretations of lecture notes.  Thus illegible handwriting encourages students to work together and share ideas. Writing illegibly requires a great deal of practice to be effective.  If one does not have satisfactory handwriting (that is to say, if one's handwriting is suitable only for formal invitations and eye charts). Certain "tricks" can be learned:

1. Write small. For students in the back rows, this is almost as effective as writing illegibly. The disadvantage is that students in the front rows will probably be able to read the board and may possibly learn something without having to spend hours interpreting their notes.  Also, the teacher who writes small may find that most of his or her class will try to sit near the front of the room, which may be too close for comfort, especially on hot days during summer sessions.
2. Write fast. The faster the teacher writes, the faster the students will have to take notes. Often the teacher can move on to a new subject while his or her students are still trying to copy what is on the board. Students will be so busy during class that they will wait until after class to try to understand the lesson.  In addition to spurring students to learn on their own, writing fast allows the teacher to cover more material in a given class period.
3. Write something while saying something different. For example, after working out a lengthy problem the teacher tells the class the answer; is x²+ y while writing on the board y² + x.  This forces students to rethink the problem in order to decide which alternative is correct.  Students are thus actively involved in problem solving even after the problem is finished.
4. Erase quickly. This technique practically forces those members of the class who take notes to pay constant attention to the lectures. Those who doze off for a few moments will awaken to find nothing to record in their notes on the topics they missed. This technique is especially effective if one uses both hands to write and erase simultaneously.  If all else fails, stand in front of what has just been written. By blocking any clear view of the blackboard, the teacher will help improve students' speculative and psychic abilities. Those instructors who are short or underweight may find this procedure extremely difficult. The above "tricks" may be used separately or combined. It is a good idea to change them occasionally in order to add some variety to the classroom routine.

It is very important that the teacher lecture to the blackboard when using it.  This helps demonstrate to students how involved the teacher is with the subject.  This enthusiasm will most assuredly rub off on the class.  Also, by facing the blackboard, one cannot face the class. It is therefore easier to ignore students' questions which tend to interrupt the presentation of topics and make the class period seem to last forever.

There is one last point on teaching technique.  It is important that one does not over prepare for lectures.  Generally, one should arrive at class a few minutes early, open the book, and glance at the topic for that particular day.  Lectures prepared in this manner have a certain freshness and spontaneity that is often missing from those which are more carefully organized.  In addition, students will gain a greater appreciation for a correct proof if they see how much time can be spent on a wrong approach.

For any question or further knowledge on the topic, email Mr. at haftamu.yohannes@skylineuniversity.ac.ae, Instructor at Skyline University College, one of the top accredited universities in UAE.

In today’s ever competitive business scenario, positioning could be considered as one of the latest marketing strategies that a company intends to use. It is due to every industry is crowded with more competitors driving to intensive competition. It leaves consumers to be confused with the selection of suitable products/services/brands to buy and consume. Thus, positioning strategy comes to rescue of the companies to use an effective marketing strategy to differentiate from other competitors. The companies used this effective strategy to create a space for themselves in respective industries they do business, as well to capture a place in the minds and hearts of potential consumers.

Brands ranging from Sony to Mercedes to Apple to leading airlines of the world involved in such exercises, thus resulting to effectively capture mind share and money share of their target consumers. Then, came in a new wave of value for money brands (VFM) which offered utility and social value to consumers for the money they pay for. The consumers started moving towards such brands which offered greater utility value, excellent performance etc. for products for the price they paid for. The electronics industry which witnessed such a massive new wave of VFM brands churning out products such as UHD LED TVs , Top end home appliances, mobile phones, electronic gadgets etc. These brands donot belong to the leagues of Sony or Apple, however, they generate revenues either equal or far more than that of leading premium brands. The brands which positioned themselves as premium brands got entrapped in their positions as they could not go down to reach bigger markets consist of larger target consumer base.

The VFM brands are intelligently focusing on Middle and bottom of the market (if World market is considered a pyramid, the peak consists of smaller base of target consumers, and the base of such consumers get wider towards moving down to middle and bottom of the pyramid) which houses larger number of consumer base belong to middle and lower income groups. Such groups of consumers intend to buy and use premium brands if such brands are available at affordable price. To fill such a gap in this market, VFM brands launched products suit to such markets and reaped enormous benefits. Even, some of the IT colleges in Dubai focus on offering state of the art IT programs at affordable fees. Such colleges could also be considered VFM brands in the areas academics. It is a precursor to leading institutional brands to adopt such strategy.

The premium brands those who focus on top of the pyramid got entrapped in their positions due to their image and inability to move down to middle and bottom of the pyramid. Trapping into such positioning statue could help premium brands to woo high end consumers, however, with the ever changing economic and social scenario across the world leave such companies to get entrapped with their positions as such consumers move across to different brands or move away. Such exodus leave the premium brands void of potential consumer base to focus on. Therefore, positioning trap could be a boon to begin with, however, later became a bane to such brands. Hence, it is imperative for such brands to re-invent their strategies to go after new age of consumers who prefer to buy VFM brands and smart enough to how and where to spend and save.

Any country, big or small has to provide a favorable business environment for its economy not only to grow but also to prosper.  Needless to say provision of a number of factors are indispensable for a healthy and competitive economy. The captains of the industry in the private sector look to the policies in place for making their business decisions.