“Strategy Insight: what one student has learned about the art of effective strategic leadership?”
Strategy 1
Sustaining Competitive Advantage over time
One personality who never fails to sustain herself as a 'queen of pop' is Madonna. Many artists, be it a male or a female came and went but Madonna has been the only singer who has maintained her equity throughout. Madonna is still the highest paid female singer and had the highest earning tour in United Kingdom. She is ranked after Beatles to be the only singer who has had 11 top ranking albums. Bill board magazine terms her as the smartest business women since she has sustained herself in ways that have aided her with a competitive advantage. Madonna's chameleon like ability has given her the edge over the others. She has the ability to change her music -genre and satisfy her fans worldwide. Looking at her history, she began with pop-oriented style earning fame amidst 'wannabe girls'. Her appearance attracted Macy's and they introduced a merchandize based on her looks. In 1984, she underwent a image makeover and became a material girl. She imitated Marilyn Monroe in terms of being glamorous sexual pussy cat. This attracted not only her fans but also Marilyn Monroe fans and at the same time attracting music record companies which supported her in her image experiments. In late eighties she made more dramatic changes and highlighted a catholic church and dressed in red sinner kissing a black saint. Such changes occurred on a routine basis such as erotic porn star and cabaret dancer for gay population and women to earth mother targeting clubbing generation, cow girl targeting Brits in 30's, Che Guevara based on Gulf war, retro 80's look for pop-disco audiences along with gay audiences, electro-pop urban look where she collaborated with Timberlake and Kanye West and then recent look of being the queen of pop targeting her large fan base throughout. Such strategic changes competitive advantage have aided her in carving a niche for herself in the music industry and is continuing to do it so.
Strategy 2
Developing and communicating the organizations' purpose
Gerry Robinson is a personality who has been working to cure the ailing business is a professional and does what he does best. His father passed away and was a patient of dementia. It was sue to the personal experiences that he had with his father which stimulated him to make an attempt to fix the problems that the dementia care homes were facing. Upon analyzing he did not hesitate using stern language describing the care homes of today. He also exclaims in the interview with BBC that 1 out of 3 people who are over the age of 65 will die of dementia hence it becomes vital to improve the living condition of the care homes to better the stats. He says that the ability of patients with dementia indeed declines but the feeling of anger, pleasure, excitement along with other feelings still persist and hence it again becomes vital ...