THE LEARNING EDGE:

LEADERSHIP STRATEGY

with

Professor Richard Bawden

Learning is the transformation of experience and insight into

meaningful action.

I seek to learn about the ever-changing world around me in

order to co-adapt with it.

I learn in order to be!

The same can be said for organizations (as collectives

of learners):

An organization ‘seeks to learn’ about the ever-changing world

around it, in order to strategically co-adapt with it.

Self

Self

Organization

Self

Organization

Environment

Leadership is the facilitation of meaningful and responsible

collective action.

Strategic leadership is the facilitation of meaningful and

responsible action for sustainable relationships.

THE TRINITY OF

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP

RESPONSIBILITIES:

THE TRINITY OF

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP

RESPONSIBILITIES:

EFFECTIVENESS

THE TRINITY OF

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP

RESPONSIBILITIES:

EFFECTIVENESS

EFFICIENCY

THE TRINITY OF

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP

RESPONSIBILITIES:

EFFECTIVENESS

EFFICIENCY

ETHICAL DEFENSIBILITY

“THE RIGHT AND PROPER THING TO DO”

Ethics relates to questions about:

“Strategic planning can often exacerbate the negative

effects of change, by ignoring the ethical implications of

proposed strategies”.

Steve Bowman

Enterprise Care Consulting Group

“In the current environment, where governance and ethics are

under increasingly closer scrutiny, any major

organizational decision should consider the ethical dimension”.

Steve Bowman Enterprise Care Consulting Group

There are three aspects of strategic leadership that have

a special significance for DECS:

• Leadership ‘of’ DECS

• Leadership ‘of’ DECS

• Leadership ‘by’ DECS

• Leadership ‘of’ DECS

• Leadership ‘by’ DECS

• Leadership ‘through’

DECS

“The experience of Living Waters school highlights a move towards low-fee paying Christian primary schools among West Australian parents to have their children

taught Christian values”.

The Australian Monday June 10 2003

In a secular educational context, ‘Christian’ values might be

appropriately replaced by what can be referred to as Kantian-

inspired values:

Values about knowledge:

Values about knowledge:

What can we know?

Values about knowledge and knowing:

What can we know?

What can we know?

Values about practice:

Values about practice:

What should we do?

Values about practice and ethics?

What should we do?

What should we do?

Values about creativity:

Values about creativity:

For what can we hope?

Values about creativity and aesthetics:

For what can we hope?

For what can we hope?

Autonomy

Autonomy

Dignity

Autonomy

Dignity

Integrity

Autonomy

Dignity

Integrity

Vulnerability

Practical applications:

From SWOT to SCOR[E]

Strengths

Weaknesses

Opportunities

Threats

Strengths

Challenges

Opportunities

Risks

Ethics

Autonomy

Dignity

Integrity

Vulnerability

Str

en

gth

s

Ch

alle

nges

Op

port

unit

ies

Ris

ks

The matter of power:

Jurgens Habermas:

Communicative Ethics

Discourse and Speech Acts

Strategic planning critically involves:

[i]NSPECTING

plausible future environments

Individual

Natural

Social

Political

Economic

Cultural

Technological

Natural

Social Technological

Intellectual

Political

Economic

Cultural

Develop a plausible scenario of the future through [i]NSPECT.

Suggest a strategic action that one might use to ‘adapt’ to that suggested

change from the present.

‘Run the strategy past’ the ethical framework as a test of impact (to autonomy, dignity, integrity and

vulnerability).