Leading Strategic Change: The Application of Strategic Influence

December 3, 2025

Leading Strategic Change: The Application of Strategic Influence

Timothy S. McWilliams | 2016

Abstract

Today’s rapidly changing, hypercompetitive, and increasingly globalized strategic environment is filled with competing ideas and interests that divide people, lead to conflict, and create significant challenges for nations and organizations alike. These competing ideas not only create obstacles to success in the external environment, but also create dissention and division within. Amid this environment, governments and organizations often expend considerable resources attempting to shape public opinion, cultivate support across diverse audiences, or influence the thinking or behaviors of others. Unfortunately, many of these efforts miss their mark because their strategic communication efforts lack holistic, long-term direction, credibility, or even power. There are number of reasons for this, but they essentially come down to the failure of strategic leaders to: (1) understand the complex dynamics that exists within the arena of ideas that is part of today’s strategic environment; (2) demonstrate leadership; and (3) communicate strategically.

This book is about the effective application of strategic influence to create strategic change—both in the external strategic environment and internally in the form of organizational culture and climate change. Strategic influence is the ability to influence the attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors of multiple differing audiences in the strategic environment simultaneously to achieve long-term strategic goals. It is the product of effective strategic leadership rooted in legitimate power and authority, and is manifested in both strategic actions that focus on strategy implementation and strategic communication that focuses on conveying specific messages to different target audiences. This book is unique because it not only explains the symbiotic relationship between strategic leadership and strategic communication required to produce effective influence, but also demonstrates how to leverage this symbiotic relationship to affect strategic change to address an important issue in every organization or institution—ethical change.

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