Strategic leadership must, of necessity, be based on a broader frame of reference . In addition to looking at an organization's environment and its culture, we can estimate an organization's strategic situation by taking a good look at its top leaders, its use of teams, its decision making processes, and its use of information technology. Top-level leaders are responsible for the strategic direction of their total organization within the broad context of the strategic environment, now increasingly global. It implies forward vision extending over very long time spans, in some cases out to 50 years or more. So, strategic leadership is a process where large scale organizations set long-term directions and obtain through consensus building the energetic support of key constituencies necessary for the commitment of resources.
Strategic leadership is a risky business.
Strategic decisions are rarely clear-cut. There will always be uncertainties and often ambiguities. Contributing to the uncertainty is the fact that decisions must be made with some set of presumably valid assumptions in mind. Risk is compounded by the fact that strategic decisions call for major commitment of scarce resources. Opportunity cost is created when commitment of resources to one option precludes the exercise of other options.