Осознанность как фактор стратегического лидерства в российских компаниях: пример строительной компании

1.1 Topic relevance and background
Humanity has not yet met what is happening in the world now. Constant pace when we need to run just to be in place. In 1987, the abbreviation VUCA (Bennis, Nanus, 1987) was first used to describe Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity of the general conditions and situations characteristic of modern economic, political and social space.
According to Michael A. Hitt, the competitive landscape of the 21th century included «increasing strategic discontinuities and disequilibrium conditions; a blurring of industry boundaries; hypercompetitive markets; an extreme emphasis on price, quality, and customer satisfaction; a growing emphasis on innovation and continuous learning; and changing employee expectations and careers» (Hitt et al., 1998).
The development of the Internet and IT technologies has triggered the transition to a new network economy, where firms compete across the boundaries in multiple markets, both service and goods, as well as multiple geographic markets across country boundaries. Moreover, now firms compete not only with other firms, but even with their consumers — individuals who can promote their goods and services over the Internet (for example, using social networks). All of the above illustrates the rapidly growing scale of competition in all markets.
Strategic discontinuities are largely triggered by new and highly valuable technologies — disruptive innovations that generate fundamental changes in the market, reducing the value of existing technologies or completely destroying old ones, creating new markets through cost savings or providing a unique customer experience (e.g. streaming services, online banking, taxi sharing services, smartphones). Discontinuities and uncertainty can also be created by major economic and social changes. Nassim Taleb in 2007 described the idea of «black swan» events that cannot be predicted due to their extreme rarity, but which can lead to catastrophic consequences for the whole world. Examples of such events are the dotcom bubble in 2001, the crash of the U.S. housing market during the 2008 financial crisis and the latest global shock due to the COVID—19 pandemic, which radically changed the way people and organizations operate: from a massive shift to remote work to a changes in business model.
New technologies and major shifts in economic activity, along with hyper competitive markets and blurring of industry boundaries, created significant challenges for managers.
Scientists and practitioners emphasize the presense of a management crisis at the moment,
which will cause a change in established paradigm. (Vikhansky, 2018; Kleyner, 2014). Those 7
practices that were successfully used in companies earlier have now ceased to work. The inability to deal with the environmental turbulence suggests highly ineffective strategic leadership, the main reasons for which are emphasis on short-term returns, an inappropriate prominence of stockholders, almost to the exclusion of other stakeholders; hubris and personal greed driving strategic decisions; and unethical, sometimes even illegal, practice (Hitt et al., 2010). At the same time, if some companies go bankrupt due to ineffective management, others are rapidly developing andy established in the market (Collins, 2001), this suggests that the company’s management is successful in implementing strategic leadership.
Strategic leadership can be characterized by the ability of companies to maintain short—term financial stability while ensuring its long-term development. For the successful implementation of strategic leadership, the leader should posess cognitive and behavioral flexibility, have different management styles and techniques in his or her arsenal and use each one in accordance with the situation. Although the field of strategic leadership has been widely studied by researchers, it is now significantly fragmented and theorized. On the one hand, there is a lack of integrated models that describe the prerequisites, consequences, and, most importantly, the factors contributing to the development of strategic leadership in companies, on the other hand, there are few quantitative and qualitative studies proving the existing models of strategic leadership.
In this Master’s thesis, the authors examined the phenomena of group and individual mindfulness as internal factors affecting the development of strategic leadership.
The study of mindfulness as a specific quality that allows individuals and teams to actively analyze the current situation and realize their limitations has gained widespread popularity over the past few decades. Mindfulness has been shown to have a positive effect on both the cognitive and physical individual qualities, and the qualitative and quantitative outcomes of individuals and teams in the workplace and organizations as a whole. Many large companies choose mindfulness as their core business strategy and competitive advantage, and are adopting corporate mindfulness practices both to reduce stress and improve wellbeing and to make strategic decisions.
Although the concepts of mindfulness and strategic leadership have not been directly linked in the scientific literature, there are many prerequisites for this connection. In this paper, we connect these phenomena for the first time and prove that individual and collective mindfulness are contributing internal factors to the development of strategic leadership in companies.
1.2 Relevance of the study
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This study has both theoretical and practical significance. First of all, the study proposed the structure of strategic leadership in the organization, and also identified the main qualities of strategic leadership at the individual and group level. Secondly, the study proposed phenomena of individual and group mindfulness of the company as internal factors for the strategic leadership development and this connection has been proven empirically. Thus, the study contributes to a more integrated view of strategic leadership in theory.
Practical relevance is characterized by the fact that allows, to a certain extent, to find an answer to the question: «How modern companies can ensure their long-term viability, and how leaders can develop skills for effective management in turbulent environment? »
As a result of the study, a model for the development of strategic leadership skills through mindfulness was proposed. In this study authors also verified and tested tools for measuring mindfulness and strategic leadership in a company, and described how research findings could be applied in the company within the framework of corporate development, team building and motivation system.
1.3 Research gap, goal, and questions
Research gap:
Although the field of strategic leadership has been widely studied by researchers, it is now significantly fragmented and theorized.
Firstly, there is a lack of integrated models that describe the prerequisites, consequences, and, most importantly, the factors contributing to the development of strategic leadership in companies.
Secondly, the strategic leadership factors that are cited in meta-studies are mainly external factors related to the dynamics of the market, competitors, industry and others. At the same time, researchers consider a fairly small number of internal factors that determine the effectiveness of strategic leadership. Most of the internal factors are related to the quantitative characteristics of companies (performance, age, size), while there is a lack of analysis of qualitative indicators related to the company’s climate, communication, employee characteristics, etc. A special role in the formation of strategic leadership has mindfulness, both at the group and at the individual level. In practice companies seek to increase their level of mindfulness, both group and individual, through collective activities and through programs for the development of individual mindfulness. At the same time, research on the role of mindfulness in strategic fields is extremely fragmented.
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Finally, there is a lack of quantitative and qualitative studies proving the existing models of strategic leadership and the role if mindfulness in its development.
Research goal
The research goal of the study is to determine the impact of individual and group mindfulness on the development of strategic leadership
To achieve the abovementioned goal, several research objectives have been stated:
1. To conduct literature overview of strategic leadership phenomena and define the research gap;
2. Select factors of strategic leadership, develop theoretical model, state hypotheses and empirical assumptions;
3. Choose a case for the study;
4. Collect and adapt data for quantitative research;
5. Perform quantitative analysis to test the model;
6. Collect data for qualitative research;
7. Conduct a qualitative analysis;
8. Analyze the results obtained at the quantitative and qualitative phases; 9. Provide recommendations for practical application in companies
In order to achieve the goal, it is necessary to answer the main research questions:
Q1: How can mindfulness affect the level of strategic leadership in a company?
Q2: What factors can affect the relationships between mindfulness and strategic leadership?
1.4. Research methodology
The study uses a case—study research strategy, and has a single-case study design, and has a single-case study design that allowed fully analyze the relationship between variables, as well as draw conclusions for future research. The study uses a mixed-method explanatory approach, which made it possible to first quantitatively prove the relationship between variables, and then use qualitative methods to interpret the quantitative results. Survey and semi-structured interviews were used as data collection methods.
The research was divided into two phases, quantitative and qualitative.
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For the quantitative part, the following hypotheses were stated:
1. Group mindfulness has a positive impact on strategic leadership;
2. Individual mindfulness has a positive impact on group mindfulness;
3. Individual mindfulness is positively associated with strategic leadership via group mindfulness
For the qualitative part, the following empirical assumptions were stated:
1. Group mindfulness develops through the practice of group discussions;
2. Group mindfulness is influenced by the dynamism of the internal and external
environment, as well as the complexity of the tasks.
1.5. Overview of Chapters
The study consists of 5 main chapters. The first chapter is devoted to describing the context of the research, the motivation for the research, the definition of the research gap, as well as the goals, objectives and research questions.
Chapter 2 provides a literature review, offers an overview of the theoretical constructs of strategic leadership, its development, its components and properties, also discusses the concepts of group and individual mindfulness and their relationship with strategic leadership.
Chapter 3 describes the methodology employed to conduct this study. It provides rationale for a case study design and provides an overview of each study phases.
Chapter 4 analyzes the results of quantitative and qualitative research.
Finally, Chapter 5 discusses the interpretation and implications of the results and introduces recommendations.