Sun Tzu's Young Strategist Program – A guide to Successful Leadership Planning

Leadership Models and Theories

The rapid development in technology and globalization has opened the floodgate. Global economic dynamics has shifted from knowledge- driven to innovation-driven. To survive in the new economy, companies must not only innovate and also adapt rapidly to the changing trends and development. It is important for all the management executives and business leaders who want to make a mark in this ever competitive business world to think strategically. Over the past decades, there has been a slew of new leadership models and theories, which includes situational leadership, action-centred leadership, reflective leadership, creative leadership and transformational leadership.

Leadership Development using Ancient Art of War principles

The rise of China has led to increasing understanding of Chinese style of leadership and management. One of the most recognized and highly sought after Chinese management model is sun tzu art of war. Sun Tzu art of war is increasingly use in the corporate world to sharpen strategic thinking and coaching in situational leadership. Recently BBC international and Channel News Asia has also jointly broadcast a business leaders series titled: Sun Tzu Art of War Thought Leaderships where business strategies are dissected using Sun tzu art of War. This series has taken the market by storm with broadcast across Asia including India, China, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Leadership Succession Planning

Leadership succession planning is a critical step that all organizations needs to adopt to grow future leaders and to ensure continuous development. McKinsey quote that this is a decade titled: “War on Talent” Success by succession planning is an investment that business leaders need to recognize as an important strategy in achieving the long-term vision of their organization. However, very few realize in its potential as a paradigm for your leadership succession planning.

Despite the growing awareness that succession planning is an essential process with numerous benefits, a recent study titled Effective Succession Management (EFS) found that only one per cent of surveyed organizations rated their succession-management plans as "excellent" and as much as two-thirds described them as "fair or worse."

Psychometric Analysis in Leadership Selection.

Current human resource practise still relies heavily on off the shelf psychometric tools in their selection processes, shortlisted candidates for succession planning are rarely assessed by their situational response and strategic thinking. According to Sun Tzu art of war, the most effective way to test the capability and aptitude of potential leadership candidates is to put them to the test and see how they react in “real” life situation. Sun Tzu believe that those who overcome adverse situations have the character to emerge as a true leader.

Have you already got a team and now you want them to adopt the sun tzu art of war leadership thoughts?

Sun tzu art of war contains the set of universal strategic principles which are timeless for strategic decision-making framework. Knowing and understanding art of war might be simple since it merely contain 5000 ancient Chinese characters but internalizing and mastering it is difficult. Just as wisdom and innovation cannot be taught overnight, they can only be realized or induced without a systematic approach. It is therefore critically important to identify future leaders with the strategic thinking skills or they must be coached in strategic thinking skills before assuming the responsibility for the company. Sun Tzu Art of war institutes offers a suite of strategic thinking programs to teach and embed these “Sun Tzu “ values into the mind of the students.