the difference between the general’s view (and the CEO’s view) and that of some lower-levelofficer (like line or middle managers). The primary responsibility of a lower-level officermight be supply logistics, infantry, or heavy armored vehicles. Thus, lower-level officers maynot be too concerned with the overall plan because of their attention to detail in specific ar-eas of responsibility. The general, however, must not only understand howallof the con-stituent parts interrelate, but must use that understanding to draw up a plan that will leadto victory—a strategy. In the business context, the idea of strategy, therefore, suggests a big-picture perspective on the firm and its context. We call this holistic view of the organizationthestrategic leader’s perspective.The success of a military strategy depends not only on the quality of the general’s plan-ning and the vision behind it, but also on the execution of the strategy by the forces underthe general’s command. In business settings, likewise, a strategy is of little use if it is not well-executed by line managers. In addition, the quality of a strategy is often dependent on theleader’s soliciting and utilizing the advice of other senior and midlevel leaders. In otherwords, a good leader can’t afford to devise a strategy in isolation from the lower-level lead-ers who are responsible for executing it.The ideas of strategy need not focus exclusively on military analogies just because theroot of the word is from this context. You can see ideas analogous to the difference betweenthe general’s view and the lower-level officer’s view in sports, education, personal life, andbusiness. The important thing about the Greek derivation of the wordstrategyis that thebig-picture perspective is fundamentally different from the detail of operational tactics.In business, strategy requires a big-picture perspective. Up to this point, most of yourbusiness courses have probably focused on important but limited aspects of business. In-deed, most business-education classes are devoted to specialized areas of study on specificfunctional areas, such as finance or marketing. In strategic management, however, we’reconcerned with an overall, holistic view of the firm and its environment and the ways inwhich such a view determines the competitive decisions that businesspeople have to make.For this reason, when studying strategic management we generally take the perspective ofthe strategic leader. Recognize, however, that strategies often emerge from bottom-upprocesses and from fortuitous circumstances that the leader could not have anticipated.The strategic leader’s perspective does not mean to suggest that plans are formulated insome linear fashion by a single leader. Rather, the strategic leader’s perspective is the ho-listic consideration of the business and its environment rather than the myopic focus ona single functional area.
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