Corporate leaders perceived and actual roles in Strategic Change. A Study of CEOs of Firms Listed at the Nairobi Stock Exchange.

Abstract

The research was undertaken to establish the roles corporate leaders play in strategic change. The objectives included; to establish what corporate leaders perceive to be their roles in strategic change, the extent to which they assume some crucial roles and the extent to which the roles they assume are influenced by factors important to success in strategic change. Corporate leaders of target were all 48 CEO's of companies listed at the Nairobi Stick exchange. However, one of the target respondents (Hutchings Biemer) was de-listed during data collection and hence the population of interest changed to 47 companies. A response rate of 47 % was achieved. 95% of the respondents were male CEOslMDs, with 64% of them having been CEO's in their current firms for over 10 years. Over 55% of the respondents had overl0 years experience in middle level management. This indicated a very well experienced group in corporate management. With 73% of these firms having had carried out strategic changes in the last 5 years, majority of these CEOs were thus present during the entire strategic change exercises. 55% of the CEOs were hired into their current positions through appointment by the leading shareholders and perceived themselves to be more of coaches and mentors (77%) and steersmen/women who set direction (73%) with none perceiving themselves as fixers who made everything alright.

The roles of looking beyond the current year for developments of interest, determining the composition of change leaders and change drivers, coming up with organization vision were perceived mainly to belong to the CEO and the board of directors with minimal participation of top management team members. On the other hand, perceived roles of CEO's and lMf's mainly included translating complex situations into simple, meaningful explanations that others can grasp ,building and facilitating a culture that embraces the change and coming up with alternative strategies. The Board of directors perceived major role in strategic change was in coming up with the organizations vision and deciding on the most appropriate strategy to follow. In terms of the extent to which some roles were assumed, the most assumed role in strategic change is that of the enterprise guardian. Other roles assumed to a very large extent included that of being the organization's entrepreneur and Mobilizer and captivator. Roles such as being disturbance handlers and talent advocate seem not to be high in the list of the most important tasks for CEOs to assume. This observation corresponds with CEOs perception on such roles as handling internal barriers and institutionalizing the culture desired by the strategic change. These tasks were perceived to belong mainly to TMTs, with CEOs and BOD assuming supportive roles. The competence and experience of the TMT in strategic change seemed to be the most determinant factor on the roles CEOs IMDs will assume in a strategic change. Other key factors included the organization culture and the ownership structure. The power of the

CEO was far less a determinant as to he roles the CEO will assume, implying that in strategic change, position power and authority by themselves should not be key variables in assigning roles to change leaders! drivers in a strategic change exercise. In comparing .the perceived and actual roles of corporate leaders in strategic change, it emerged that departmental heads and other middle-level managers were not perceived to play leading roles in the strategic change steps. There thus seems to be some "transition conflict" within the corporate leaders, they seem not to have dropped the managerial roles and embraced what they seem to perceive to represent to organizational stakeholders (being coaches and Mentors in organizations). Thus, for organizations to build the change competencies into their lower levels of management there is need for involvement of middle level management staff to a larger extent especially in re-alignment strategic change exercises.