THE MANAGEMENT OF STRATEGIC AGILITY POLICY: REFLECTIONS ON THE EXPONENTIAL STYLE OF LEADERSHIP IN TURBULENT TIMES.

Abstract

If strategy is the mean to achieve growth, strategic agility policy is the tool for this growth continuity. To be agile as an organization you have to make sure that the adjustments of change are not disruptive to the entire system. Change has to be introduced in a consequence of closely controlled patterns that move with the organization in a smooth transition, but parallel to the sense of urgency requiring change. Strategic agility policy jumps as a development of the New Public Management paradigm of thinking, not just as a tool of reorganizing the company or the country on a macro level but as a challenge of restructuring and transformation in the way it thinks, acts, responds, predicts and leads. If an organization is two or more people coming together to achieve a certain goal, so achieving an agile environment requires using the people in a customer-focused culture to be the core of this change. The new wave of thinking would not employ a systematic plan of SWOT tools to analyze the environment for change and plan the transition, but it will require an Exponential leader’s vision of flexibility to orient activity and introduce the policy in a pattern of systematic reform towards unpredictable obstacles and resistance to ensure a smooth transition in a changing environment. In other words it requires the type of leader that hunts the prey ahead of its time. Agility policy will look to the environment of change in the organization as a constant, ongoing matter and requires an application of the problem solving methods that fit the situation of turbulence by using critical thinking methods and looking to the bottom of the iceberg before the tip. It is moreover the key to any crisis management plan that occurs in the organization through the renewal of the reform model that leaders follow. This implies that an organisation has to shift from a rigid pattern to a more flexible one employing a more responsive, flat structure, sensitive strategic plan, a dedicated Exponential leadership supporting the path of change and a less resistant workforce that can accept the vision of change. The case under study in this research is the New Suez Canal and the findings supported that the agile policy of transformation here is the key success towards the implementation of change and the exponential leader is the Maestro behind the final positive outcome.