Conceptualizing the Role of Leadership Strategy in the Context of Strategic Management Process: A Review of Literature

A focus on the nature of strategic management process and its contribution to answer fundamental question of how firms achieve sustainable competitive advantage and improved performance through use of suitable leadership has led to organizational leaders formulating strategies through approaches that are systematic, rational as well as logical to strategic choices at corporate, business and functional levels. This has continued to be a major milestone in strategic management process in establishing a clear strategy that makes an organization competitive through suitable management of its workforce and application of strategies that are not easily imitated. This calls for an appropriate leadership strategy aimed at eliminating the gap in human capital that exists in various levels of strategic management process in an organization between the current and desired state of leadership in the future that will address the organization deficiencies by considering the right number of leaders required by the firm for the next at least 5 years with required leadership qualities, skills, behavior, team capabilities and appropriate culture. This study has focused on a comprehensive review of conceptual and theoretical literature that brings out the role of leadership strategy in the context of strategic management process that leads to improved organizational performance. The concept of organizational capabilities and organization context were found to play a relevant role that mediate and moderate this relationship respectively. The study has proposed a suitable theoretical framework that links leadership strategy, organizational capabilities, and context and organization performance based on the identified gaps for guiding future research on leadership strategy. Six theories including; Pasmore model as lead theory, Path-Goal theory, Contingency theory, transformational leadership, Resource based view and Upper echelon theory underpinned the study in understanding the constructs. In summary, based on the reviewed literature, the study on leadership strategy is found critical for organization success and this calls for further testable empirical data and analysis to validate this claim.


Introduction
The strategic management literature apportions an important role to the construct of leadership in the entire strategic management process. Within the strategic management process, the role of leadership has been suggested in the phases of planning, making strategic choice and implementation. An important point of concern in focusing on leadership is the role it will play in contributing to a firm's performance. Jabbar (2017) posits that leadership serve as a link between the soul and the body of an organization by making decisions for the formulation of strategy and implementation. Porter (1990) observed that although leadership in many organizations is more of operational improvements and planning for deals, the leaders' role in organizations is still broader and far more important and should run across all the functional levels of strategy that include; corporate, business and functional to allow for organizational growth. Thus, this role of leadership needs to be clearly articulated across the various levels of strategy in a way that decision makers at each level can play a more active role. According to Pasmore (2014), most attention has been given to formulation of business strategies geared towards improvement in organization performance with little emphasis on what role leadership is expected to play only for the emphasis to appear at the implementation phase of strategic management. Leadership needs to be infused into the strategic management system across all the phases and levels of strategic management early enough in the process to position the system for undertaking choice and implementation of strategies to arrive at the desired level of performance. With recent initiatives to embed leadership much more into the strategic management process, the strategic management literature is beginning an important journey to ensure that the various levels and phases of strategic management are impacted upon by the construct of leadership at a theoretical and conceptual level such that benefits attained at these levels stand to address the concerns for enhanced performance in organizations derived from the deployment of leadership.
From the traditional perspective, leadership has been viewed from a management functions context touching mostly on use of leadership styles, power influence, and characteristics and more so directed towards realization of organizational objectives (Thomson & Strickland, 1993). However, Pasmore (2014) posits that although some attention from both theoretical and conceptual reviews have been given to these cited aspects of leadership from traditional perspectives, subsequent developments in strategic management literature show that these aspects foretell a higher potential ability than observed from the traditional perspectives. Thus, from history, leadership has developed into a great area of interest to many researchers globally through different theoretical approaches to explain leadership processes and other arising related complexities. The recent work cited earlier providing an avenue for anchoring leadership into the phases of strategic management process has suggested the role of leadership strategy during the phase of strategy implementation (Pasmore, 2014).
This calls for an appropriate integration of the construct of leadership strategy in strategic management process at corporate, business and functional levels so as to provide a better understanding on the role of leadership in the entire strategic management process. It is our view that such an integration will enhance the ability of scholarship to better explain the leadership-organization performance link during the strategic management process. Thus, building on earlier achievements in the strategic management, we identify the need to anchor leadership much more into the strategic management process.

Problem Statement
The concept of leadership strategy is relatively young in terms of its development and conceptualization. Little has been written about the concept at the conceptual and theoretical levels and the situation is worse at the empirical level. The concept has been traced to the work of Pasmore (2014) that provided the first set of a glimpse into its nature, role, focus and possible linkage with the strategic management process. Building on this original framework by Pasmore (2014), Muthimi & Kilika (2018) advanced this work by utilizing the original proposed components of leadership strategy to propose a theoretical framework that operationalized each dimension for deployment in organizations to bring about a phenomenon suitable to benefit organizations in the context of real life situations that confront application of the traditional leadership construct.
Out of these two works, we observe that the potential in deploying leadership strategy in a strategic management context is huge and the conversation needs to be sustained to not only inform theory through conceptualization but also impact on the manner the practice of strategic management is carried out not only during implementation but also at the earlier stages of formulation and choice. We particularly draw from two works of Barbuto (2002) and Golding (2007) that have given attention to strategy development process and the designated role of diverse stakeholders within an organizational system. Barbuto (2002) proposed several strategy development approaches that raise implications for some of the dimensions of leadership strategy in Pasmore's framework and later relied upon by Muthimi & Kilika in proposing a model for the deployment of leadership strategy as a strategic resource in organizations. Golding (2007) concurred with Barbuto in the proposal for different strategy development approaches that raise implications for the role of leadership not only at implementation but also at the formulation phases. We are of the view that these two perspectives brought about in the earlier works need consideration and integration into the continuing conversation on the discussion on leadership strategy.
Undertaking this theoretical work in the direction of expanding the scope of application of leadership strategy offers an opportunity for the scholarship to properly situate the construct of leadership strategy much more appropriately in the entire strategic management process. In addition, it further offers an opportunity to interrogate the diverse approaches to leadership that have informed the theories supporting the current theoretical understanding of leadership with a view to enhancing the application and contribution of the construct of leadership to the strategic management process. Thus, a comprehensive understanding is required alongside examination of relevant theoretical underpinnings that enhance this required understanding. Even though Muthimi & Kilika attempted to anchor in relevant theoretical underpinning, we are of the opinion that the expanded understanding and application calls for an expanded scope in the theoretical underpinnings and subsequent examination of extant empirical work.
The purpose of this paper therefore is to review extant literature on the construct of leadership strategy in conjunction with other relevant pieces of theoretical and conceptual literatures to provide an enriched framework on the nature of leadership strategy in a manner that benefits all phases of the strategic management process. The paper had three objectives: to review the extant conceptual, theoretical and empirical literatures on the constructs of leadership strategy and strategic management process, to identify aspects of the strategic management process suitable to operationalize the components of leadership strategy at all phases of strategic management and to describe a relevant theoretically grounded phenomenon brought about by the deployment of leadership strategy in the context of real life situations of organizations. This paper is found to offer significant contribution in the field of general management and strategic studies by responding to several gaps that need scholarly attention. First, the paper seeks to identify and fill existing theoretical and empirical gaps regarding the construct of leadership strategy that have not been addressed by the previous works of Pasmore (2014) and Muthimi & Kilika (2018). Secondly, the paper seeks to address the needs of various stakeholders in the field of strategic management by offering a better understanding of the underlying construct of leadership strategy and its contribution to organizational performance in terms of acquisition of the right quantity of leaders needed by the organization, the desired leadership qualities during selection process, the needed skills and behaviours to drive the business strategy, the needed leadership capabilities of the selected leaders and the desired leadership culture. Thirdly, upon further empirical study and proof, the paper will contribute significantly to decision making on appropriate policies on good governance by various government entities, management strategists and practitioners and policy makers. Lastly, the scholars in the field of management, strategy and organizational studies will find a firm theoretical base on leadership strategy and organizational performance for building their future research for the purpose of replication and further proofs through empirical studies.

Conceptual Review
This section reviews the constructs of leadership strategy that form the basis of the study and how it interlinks with other constructs such as organizational capabilities, and organization context in creating value for enhanced organizational performance. A review of conceptual literature on the construct is carried out with a view to understanding its historical evolution concepts, meaning and components and the role it plays that guides the achievement of organization performance in the field of strategic management.

The concept of leadership
Leadership has been approached in the management literature as a function of management to offering direction. As a subset of the directing function, it has been closely associated with motivation of people within a system in pursuit of the long-term direction of an organization. Directing as a function of management is indicated to be a human factor process through which leaders instruct, guide and oversee performance of the subordinates to achieve organization predetermined goals. Various studies in management books have shown that directing function is the heart of strategic management process and plays a big role in initiating actions where subordinates understand their jobs and work according to laid instructions. Through this function, the leader is able to steer an organization in a way that guides and instructs subordinates on what to be done and how to perform it. It is also a means of motivating subordinates through provision of incentives or compensation, whether monetary or non-monetary, which serves as a "morale booster" to the subordinates to enable them give the best of their abilities that helps in growth of the organization. This is in line with Path-Goal theory of leadership that stipulates that leader's behaviour should exhibit directive, supportive, participative and achievement-oriented characteristics to motivate their subordinates to perform.

Nature of Leadership
Although leadership is a valuable phenomenon that has been simply defined as ability to influence and guide others to achieve a set objective, various scholars have dodged its definition despite entitling their books and journals with the word "leadership" (Yukl, 2002). Barker (2001) posited that leadership as a continuous process that reflects the sum total of a leader's performance based on some key characteristics of a leader and the condition in the environment. Kotter (1988) in his book entitled "The Leadership Factor" defined leadership as a process of moving a group of persons in a given direction that is genuinely in their long-term best interests and through means that are non-coercive. Wheatly (1994) directs more of his narratives to management in his book entitled "Leadership and the New Science" and less mentoring the word leadership outside the book title. According to Shelton (1997) in his book entitled "A new Paradigm of Leadership" places more emphasis on how to manage organizations and employees in order to achieve the set objectives but no definition of leadership is clearly provided. Thus, other scholarly journals have tended to follow similar lines of conventional thinking, Kostner (1994) in his book entitled "Visual Leadership" offers many valuable insights on management but communicates less on conventional thinking about leadership.
Historically, since the start of civilization, study of leaders and their leadership styles has been of great interest and is still an area of active inquiry. The extant literature shows that research in leadership has undergone metamorphosis over time since civilization with initial investigations focusing on competencies and personality traits among members of the organization taking centre stage in the mid twentieth century (Jenkins, 1947). According to Keith (2010) leadership is an old concept due to its evolution from the earliest manifestations in ancient societies, highlighting the beginning of leadership writings Plato, Sun Tzu and others. Burns (1978) asserts that although leadership is among most observed phenomenon, it is least understood and hence an area of active investigation on earth planet. Leadership has therefore been defined by many researchers basing on individual perspectives such as traits, behavior, influence, interaction patterns, role relationships, and occupation of administration office.
Even though the literature is rich on leadership, it is observable that questions continue being raised especially due to the role of leadership in the success of organizations. Given this state of the literature, there seems to be lack of clarity on how to situate and locate the evidence of the existence of leadership within organizational systems in view of the past conceptualizations of the construct. Is leadership a person, is it a position or an office. How is it exercised in an organizational system? How do we hold it accountable for organizational results? Thus, with lingering questions on what constitute leadership, where to trace it and how to link it to the success or failure of an organization, there is need for concerted effort in strategic management to expand the scope of the understanding of the construct of leadership as applied in organizational systems. Pasmore (2014) work responds to this existing gap and we suggest adoption of the approach adopted in his work focusing on leadership strategy to infuse a conceptualization that address the lingering questions touching on how to situate leadership in an organization.
From the above historical analysis, definitions and existing literature in strategic management, three observations on leadership are identified: First, leadership is a dynamic process whereby leaders have the power to cause an influence on their followers in a particular pattern that has developed over time and defined in various individual perspectives. Secondly, the historical buildup of evolution of leadership does not give clear indicators of success for the future of organizations. Thirdly, building and retaining good leadership for organizations is a major area of concern. This therefore calls for a need by organization leaders to re-focus their thinking on the construct of leadership strategy that entails dimensions of the quantity and quality of required leaders, required skills, behavior, capabilities and leadership culture that supports effective implementation of the business strategy.

Leadership Strategy
Although literature in strategic management has stressed on importance of leadership roles at strategy choice and formulation, implementation and evaluation, the concept of leadership strategy is yet to be integrated into mainstream literature . Work done by Pasmore (2014) opened room for more interactions by researchers on the construct of leadership strategy by acknowledging the importance of leadership to the field of strategic management at all levels of strategy and the need for a strategy to drive the process effectively in organizations from strategic planning to strategic thinking perspectives-a particular way of thinking into the desired future for the organization. Although many studies in literature have focused on leadership styles and performance in aligning efforts made by members of the organization with the set goals, the many complex challenges, interactions and scenarios facing leaders must be put into consideration in decision making during strategy formulation and strategy implementation by focusing on thinking about understanding of leadership strategy.

Leadership strategy-meaning
In order to conceptualize the understanding of leadership strategy which stems from the term leadership, it is important that leadership is understood. Leadership has therefore been defined in many ways by various authors. According to Kouzes & Posner, (2007) leadership has been defined as a process that is dynamic whereby leaders may mobilize followers through engagements to perform extra ordinary things. Such practices may include leaders acting as role model, sharing vision, inspiring others to act through encouragement and sharing challenges of the process. Bartol & Martin, (1998) finds leadership as process of influencing others to achieve organizational objectives. Burns (1978) defines leadership as process of influencing followers to achieve intended objectives. An example is found in the book of exodus from the bible with Moses influencing the Israelites to leave Egypt for a better land flowing with milk and honey. Considering all related factors to definition of leadership and leadership being a dynamic dyadic process, has enabled leaders to get to understand and cause an influence on the followers by transcending from self-interest to greater thinking about the organization. This is realized by inspiring others through shared vision, motivating them, defining a reward system that is competitive and supporting higher level needs of the followers so as to achieve organizational goals through collective efforts.
From the above definitions, it is clear that leadership is a critical factor to consider in organization development and in quest to meeting achievement of the organization goals. However, it should be noted that in order to meet these expectations one requires a leadership strategy. Even though importance of a leadership strategy can be felt in organizations, extant literature has somehow remained silent on this construct. Leadership strategy has therefore been looked at in different perspectives. Day & Dragoni (2015) defined leadership strategy as a driving force behind any plan being put into action and description of its mode of operation for the near and more distant future. These include dimensions such as; formulating the vision for the organization, recruiting people to realize the vision, set goals and objectives and finally creating a detailed plan of action with measurable parameters.
The earlier discussion on leadership raised some issues regarding how leadership has been understood and practically interpreted in terms of its contribution to organizational outcomes. In addressing the concern on how to situate leadership within a system, Pasmore (2014) found that what determines the success of an organization is the ability of leaders to pull together both the informal and formal leadership to achieve the set organizational objectives and hence performance. It is our view that this ability to demonstrate the togetherness is what strategic management needs to lay emphasis on so as to project a corporate identity that is wholly supported by the entire organizational system. In considering the construct of leadership strategy, we suggest that there is need to demonstrate how this construct responds to basic attributes of strategic thinking that raise the need for a system orientation in pursuing strategic goals in organizations. Pearce and Robinson (2012) allude to this in their articulation of the concept of company mission and the role it is expected to play in providing a sense of unanimity of purpose among diverse organizational units.
Thus, in the attempt to present an understanding of leadership strategy, Pasmore (2014) first provides a list of the attributes of a good leadership strategy. Towards this, he proposed that a good leadership strategy as one that takes into consideration all factors that include; the quantity of expected leaders, the expected qualities of the leadership during the process of selection, the expected skills and behaviours that will enable achievement of the business strategy, leadership team capabilities and the expected leadership culture. According to Muthimi and Kilika (2018) the role of the leadership strategy is to provide a roadmap for an organization in a way that provides the direction for an organization to move into its future. It does so by analyzing the organization's present situation and the planned future state in terms of human resource requirements suitable to effectively drive the strategy formulated by an organization during the implementation phase. Thus, a well-planned leadership strategy put into account; the total expected number of leaders the organization need in its various segments for the next 5 to 10 years, the expected level of skills and behaviours as individuals and also as a team collectively and expected leadership culture to enable the organization achieve its intended goals and hence total success being sought.
This description so far advanced has limited its focus to the strategy implementation phase of the strategic management process. In rea life situation, though theoretically strategic management processes have been clustered into different activities, their undertaking invites a cyclical process in which both formulation and implementation activities take place at the same time. We find support for this in the literature where planning automatically leads to controlling and vise versa with activities specified for undertaking in each feeding into the processes of the other. Within this, we find the need for expanding the scope of understanding of leadership strategy to go beyond implementation and apply at the earlier stages of the strategic management process. Such a perspective finds support in strategic thinking where leadership in place is expected to embrace a futuristic orientation and carry out situational analysis of both internal and external contextual situations confronting the organization that strategists need to respond to.
The second point of focus given attention in understanding leadership strategy is what constitutes the strategy. This is necessary to further enhance the ability of organizational members to better situate the leadership in place as they understand their organization, where it is going and what their expected roles are. Pasmore proposed five dimensions as: The required quantity of leaders, the desired qualities of leadership, the skills and behaviours needed to implement the business strategy, the required collective leadership capabilities and the desired leadership culture in the organization. As opposed to other traditional practices of leadership, these proposals made by Pasmore on leadership strategy may be viewed as genuine concept of leadership that is open-minded, creative and visionary in response to social situations. This is in line with work done by (Badaracco, 2013) who also provided valuable leadership guidance to leaders operating in today's disruptive environment that have an effect on performance of the organization. Muthimi & Kilika (2018) in their work on leadership strategy and firm performance, found that inclusion of components of the construct of leadership strategy resulted into firm's improvement in articulating its business strategy, leadership capabilities and employees' level of performance. Despite these contributions, however, we find that little has been achieved so far in line with components of leadership strategy and its contribution to organizational performance. This is still an area of great concern due to uncertainties in the environment in which the organization operates and hence need for further research.

Components of Leadership strategy
Even though the extant literature is scanty on components of leadership strategy, there seem to be confusions in understanding the concepts as defined by various authors. Muthimi & Kilika (2018) found that leadership strategy focuses on the organization future and is based on analysis of its present state of the business and the direction of its strategic intent in terms of human resource development. The construct of leadership strategy therefore allows effective leadership to permeate at all functional levels and areas in an organization by identifying five components that organization leaders needs to focus on or consider for successful achievement of their strategic choices and future organization sustainability by ensuring there is to link between leadership strategy and business strategy. According to Ssekabuko et al (2014), the quality of leaders and their competencies in the organization can cause improvement on employee performance and this improvement leads to enhanced organizational performance. This also in agreement with work done by McNair et al (2011) who observed that leadership is an art rather than science that motivates teams or groups in achieving a given set goal. According to Pasmore (2014), these components in details include: (i) The quantity of leaders needed in the organization at current and projected future formal leadership positions as depicted by the organization structure in terms of the number, levels, functions, reporting relationships and business units, (ii) The qualities of leadership desired in selection process in terms of demographics, diversity, background and experience. The level of education is also desired quality in leadership selection though not considered by Pasmore (2014) and Muthimi & Kilika (2018) as a key component of leadership quality, (iii) The skills and behaviour needed to implement the business strategy and create a desired culture in terms of skills, competencies and knowledgebase, (iv) The collective leadership capabilities of leaders when acting together in groups and across boundaries to implement strategies, solve problems, responds to threats, adapt to change and support innovation. The ability to formulate strategies is a key leadership capability required by leaders even though not considered studies done by Pasmore (2014) and later by Muthimi and Kilika (2018), (v) The desired leadership culture that include leadership practices in use such as inter-functional collaboration, engagement of employees, accepting responsibility for outcomes, creating opportunities for others to lead, developing other leaders and learning how to learn.
Although these components of leadership strategy guides' leaders in organization in attaining their set up plans and gives an impetus of the strategic intent of the organization in terms of human skills and requirements, according to Muthimi & Kilika (2018), these component alone cannot work in isolation to achieve indented improved organization performance without due considerations of other constructs that either mediate or moderate the relationship link between leadership strategy and organization performance. In the paper, Organization capabilities and organization context have been found as constructs that mediate and moderate this relationship as seen in proposed theoretical model in fig 1.

Leadership strategy in the context of strategic management
In considering the strategic management process in the context of leadership strategy, an important question that needs to be addressed is that of how the leadership strategy can be infused into the strategic management process. We propose that through consideration of the various levels of strategy, we are able to find opportunities for the role of a leadership strategy. Thus we consider the characteristics of the various levels of strategy as decision making as well as strategy implementation units within an organization. A study done by Thomson, Perry & Miller (2007) examined strategy development at different levels of strategy in an organization involving different facets of the company strategy. The study established the three levels of strategy in an organization namely: corporate level, business level and functional level strategies.

Corporate level strategy
This level is what is described as the top management of the firm. It is vested with responsibility for ensuring there is business growth for the organization and correct alignment with its environment. This is achieved through setting of the organization's objectives, evaluating the organizational environment, setting of quantitative targets, carrying out performance analysis and formulating appropriate strategies for the organization (Ndeda, 2016). The kinds of decisions made are long term and organization wide that helps the organization focus to building up relevant competitive advantages against its competitors in the market. The key participants are the top management team that includes the Chief Executive Officers and Management Board members in the organization. Thus, Leadership here, is concerned with initiatives the organization uses to establish its business in different units and approaches the top management team pursue to achieve set strategies of the organization. It is at this level that the organization develops its vision and sets objectives to guide it in formulating strategies. According to Chandler (1962), strategy at the corporate aims to determine the long-term goals of an organization and sets up courses of action as well as resource allocation needed to carry out these goals. The leadership at this level provides a strong oversight function to ensure strategy formulation and implementation is undertaken effectively and efficiently to benefit all stakeholders of the organization. This is in line with work done by Omulaja & Emoia (2011) who argued that it is at the corporate levels of strategy that strategic position, strategic choices and strategy in action for an organization are set and planned.
In view of the decisions and application of techniques, we are of the opinion that these two offer a suitable avenue for the continued conversation on what role the diverse components of leadership strategy come to play. Thus, we propose that the components can apply as: quantity of leadership is required in the portfolio analysis to ensure adequate representation of the top management team members into each of the businesses a firm has invested in. At the top management, there will be need for a sufficient number of leaders to ensure each business is run in a way that the interests of management and key stakeholders are satisfied.
Even though empirical evidence seems to suggest that key quality of successful leadership have unique personal traits or characteristics that include visionary capacity and ability to cope with organizational dynamics, it is our view that the quality of leadership an organization has will be required in analysis of situation, data and options that will lead to success of strategic decisions being made at all levels of strategy. This is as a result of critical issues that needs to be addressed that affect the organization such as abreast of the changing environmental conditions and how the organization is responsive to these changes, developing an in-depth understanding of the major trends in the environment that affect the organization from a global view point and understanding the role played by leaders within the corporate culture as a result of varied leaders characteristics in terms of demographics, diversities, education and experience backgrounds (Hassan, 2019).
In addition to the right quantity and quality of leaders an organization may adopt in the interest of its management, the skills and behaviours required of these leaders will play a big role in enhancing organizational abilities to innovate, adapt to change, develop more talents and business acumen at both regional and global. It is our view that an organization will require leaders with the right work attitudes through appropriate selection options at all levels of strategy that will create a focused and effective development experiences to enhance desired behavioural competencies for all leaders within the organization hierarchy.
The other component of leadership strategy dimension that will enable organization to pursue its mission or purpose will be the collective capabilities of the leadership in formulating strategies that provide direction, demonstrate alignment and generate commitments to ensure compliance with required set of values, beliefs and actions within the organization (Pasmore, 2014). In terms of organizational effectiveness, we are of the opinion that these capabilities required by leaders when acting together will exhibit leadership style that is in conformity to the majority of the leaders in the organization that aim to enhance its effectiveness in terms of enhanced talent development, faster innovation to market, more responsiveness to customers.
Finally, the leadership culture dimension is another key aspect of leadership strategy that set up practices that are important and shared across the organization in terms of accepting shared responsibilities through employee engagement, enhancing team spirit and other system views that embrace opportunities that lead to business improvement by enabling organizations formulate strategies that exhibit degree of dependence, interdependence or independence among the business leaders. It is our view that this approach will not only enhance organization performance but will also eliminate the dangers of conflicts for the available scarce resources and reduce competition among the strategic business units within the organization. From the characteristics of this level, we suggest that the leadership strategy will be required to play an important role in setting up both corporate objectives and corporate strategy that bring together and describes the organization's business concepts that will help and serve to build up the firm's relevant competitive advantages.

Business level strategy
Whereas the main purpose at the corporate level strategy is to make investment decisions, business level strategy focuses more on how the organization carry out its moves to attain the desired goals. Some studies in strategic management have attributed business strategy as a corporate intent scheme or a blue print of the entire business or set of competitive moves and actions that an organization may adopt to attract customers in the environment, strengthen its performance through successful competition while achieving desired goals. It is at this level of strategy that the vision and mission statements developed at the corporate level by the organization are converted into actionable strategies by middle level managers through use of appropriate tools such as SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threat) analysis, Porter's generic and cost-leadership strategies.
Emerging from the discussion above, it is our opinion that the management of organization need to focus on the quantity and quality of leaders for each of its strategic business units since it is at this level that implementation of strategy is more focused by setting up of medium term strategies arising from the long-term strategies formulated at the corporate level strategy that match required leadership with resources at the business unit. Thus, we find that leadership at this level of strategy is more concerned with actions and approaches crafted to produce success performance in a specific business line in order to build a strong competitive advantage. It is at this level of strategy that he the leadership skills and behaviours will play a key role in propelling the organization to desired performance level through articulation of formulated strategies being implemented at the business unit. This is achieved through implementation of crafted strategies and monitoring developments and evaluating performances with corrective adjustments in line with actual performance and changing conditions in the environment arising from new opportunities and new ideas. It is at this level that managers focus consistently on set of values and beliefs in crafting responses to market scenarios and initiates actions to strengthen their market position. However, even though this agrees with Pasmore (2014) who asserts that leadership is paramount at implementation stage of strategic management process and therefore leadership strategy should be driven at this level of strategy, the roots for proper manifestation of leadership strategy exist at earlier stages than those espoused by Pasmore.

Functional level strategy
Functional level strategy involves decision making by functional leaders at the organization operational function level such as finance, marketing, production, human resource, research and development and any other functional areas. At this level, the leadership is more concerned with implementing organization plans formulated at the corporate levels into action assignments and ensuring that these assignments are executed in a manner that accomplishes the stated plans by providing individualized support and intellectual abilities to employees and clarifying performance expectations for the organization through appropriate effective communication. According to studies done by House (1971) and Fielder (1967), leadership at the functional level strategy are entrusted with responsibility of crafting appropriate functional strategies in line with the existing business and corporate strategies and therefore these leaders should develop leadership skills and behaviours that supports organization initiatives in achieving the longer term objectives that inspire, stimulate and instill a sense of purpose to employees as they see the big picture of the organization direction. Thus, it is our opinion that strategy implementation at this level is backed by matching of required quantity and quality of effective leadership in providing actions, approaches and practices needed in managing a particular business processes or key activities or functions within the business such as finance, marketing, procurement and human resources functional areas

Deployment of leadership strategy in organizations
Strategic decisions in organizations are considered as investments by those organizations due to the high volumes of economic resources they require as well their potential impact over the medium and long-term periods. An undertaking for an organization to implement a leadership strategy can be thought in the same light that it is an investment decision for a firm. However, in view of the concerns to management and investors, what is in it for the management to invest in a leadership strategy? We argue that leadership strategy brings in huge potential for an organization as a strategy that will enhance the organizations fitness in its changing environment and be a source of driving a firm's long-term desire of sustained performance. Thus, in leadership strategy we find contribution towards environmental response as well as the means to sustain performance. How this is attained becomes a subject for strategic thinkers to explore and explain.
Leadership strategy can be construed to be a type of resource that when deployed in an organization unleashes potential that will bring about outcomes that are beneficial to the organization in the context of its external context. In this line of reasoning, we note that (i) Leadership as a resource can be a source of sustaining long term performance that guarantees competitive advantage. This in itself implies some form of capability that the organization derives from the leadership strategy. (ii) The capability so derived will be responsible for sustaining the long-term performance expectations of the firm. (iii) The attained performance is achieved within the external context of a firm in line with realities derived from the complimentarily between RBV perspective on the one hand and RDT and institutional perspectives on the other.
Thus, we suggest in attempting to understand the role of leadership strategy in organizations and the phenomenon it brings about, scholarships need to consider what capabilities derive from leadership, the nature of performance and the situational developments that may condition the behavior exhibited by the deployed leadership strategy and its phenomenon. In this regard, the nexus between appropriate leadership strategy employed, the organizational capabilities in place, the consideration of the organizational context in which the organization operates and organizational performance cannot be over assumed due to the importance the construct of leadership plays in organizations success. According to Muthimi & Kilika (2018), the necessity of focusing on leadership strategy dimensions as a new shift in leadership in organizations cannot be underrated as key determinants of firm performance. In conclusion, the role played by the three levels of strategy at both formulation and implementation stages have been summed up as shown in Appendix 1 and 2:

Organizational capabilities
The concept of organizational capabilities in strategic management studies in recent times has been viewed with a lot of interests by various researchers as a major component of an organization strategy. Shoemaker & Amit (1993) found organizational capability as a means by which resources are deployed in an organization through effective leadership aimed to achieve a desired end. Thus, organizational capability is viewed as intangible resources that comprise of accumulated knowledge, bundle of skills and organizational routines. These observations and with reference to arguments raised in RBV theory that organizations are heterogeneous with bundle of resources having unique characteristics that are difficult to duplicate due to their valuability(increase in customers value), Rarity(competitors unable to tap them), inimitability(difficult for competitors to gain competitive parity) and nonsubstitutability(hard for competitors to copy), leaders should focus on use of their internal resources to maximize on derived benefits by identifying capabilities that gives an organization a competitive advantage over others.
In this regard, we find organizational capability a strategic resource within an organization and when tapped, give rise to two possibilities namely capabilities and competences that lead to sustainable performance. The unleashed capabilities and competencies when enacted into an organizational system that host the leadership as a base for sustaining the strategy, gives rise to improved superior performance. Thus, within a linear path of reasoning, we are of the opinion that the construct of organizational capabilities is relevant to this study since it enables leaders in the organization able to exploit all areas that give it a competitive advantage in order to develop appropriate strategies that enhance value to the customer.
Based on the literature discussed above, calls are emerging for firms to consider adoption of organizational capabilities as a viable strategic resource for guiding organization leadership in achieving set targets or goals, even though organizational problems still remain a continuous challenge. Extant literature in strategic management has also shown that organizational capabilities have played a critical role in helping organizations grow and gain advantages over others in a competitive environment by helping leaders focus on areas where they excel most. In this regard, we find that deployment of appropriate leadership strategy in an organization will help in growth of developed capabilities in specific perspectives that makes them valuable due to their tacit nature hence difficult to imitate and transfer. However, even though organization capabilities are rather stable since they have been developed over time and do not change rapidly giving an organization its distinctive competitive edge, this concept is still not yet internalized fully in organizations to enable leaders stay competitive and improve in their performance. According to Gerd (2009) organizations operates in an uncertain environment and to be competitive, leadership in these organization should develop capabilities and knowledge that will make them better leaders in dealing with the core organizational current and emerging new problems.
Muthimi & Kilika (2018) argued that identified employee empowerment, creativity, innovativeness and process improvement within an organization were critical indicators of organizational capabilities that give an organization a competitive advantage over others in a dynamic environment. This is in line with path-goal theory that stipulates that leaders motivate their followers in tasks by involving them in behaviours that result in worthwhile outcomes for the organization and in turn motivates the subordinates leading to improved organizational performance. Organizational capabilities can therefore be defined as process-oriented concept focusing on the business ability to meet stakeholders' demands and enable firms to deal with different types of problems effectively and hence improving in their performance. Dosi, Marengo and Faillo (2003) argue that organizations being unique entities do things differently and especially in solving organizational problems that may adversely affect their business continuity and performance. Thus, incorporation of appropriate organizational capabilities in organizations have enabled them to effectively deal with key problems they face in a unique specific way as a result of capabilities that have accumulated and shaped over time within the firm (Dosi, Nelson, & Winter, 2000). A study done by Nguyen (2018) on firm capabilities and performance showed that innovative capability had a positive effect on organization performance.

Organization context
Even though organizations are unique entities, extant literature in strategic management and organizational studies have shown that both the internal and external environments in which the organization operates plays a significant role in determining the leadership system adopted by those in leadership. From arguments raised in situational leadership theory perspective, leadership is flexible and it adapts to the existing work environment and the needs of the organization for survival. The contingency theory on the other hand stipulates that there is no best or special or unique style of leadership that transcends in all organizational situations but it all depends on both the internal and external factors facing the organization at that particular situation. This is in line with Stojanovic (2014) who asserts that organization context is relatively a new requirement for organizations that require them to observe issues arising from their internal and external environment that have an impact on the organization objectives and planning of quality management systems from a strategic point of view. In addition, this makes the organization focus more on the issue of competitive survival in response to rapidly changing contemporary business conditions as observed by proponents of dynamic capability theory.
The study of organization context thus, provides an organization with an understanding of the opportunities to analysis issues arising from both its internal and external environments that affects performance and way of doing things including management of its system and people under its control (ISO 9001:2015). These issues may include factors that affect the entire system positively or negatively such as working conditions, any changing circumstances or system characteristics. The context in which the organization exists plays a big role of relationship moderation and therefore gives a new impetus to better understanding of the construct of leadership strategy thus enabling an organization to focus on areas that are relevant to its set purpose and direction in order to achieve intended quality objectives and improved performance. Other than the socio-cultural, technological, political, market, economic systems, this study considered issues such as such as statutory and regulatory requirements, competitive landscape and stakeholders needs and expectations as arising factors from the external context of an organization that pose great effect on organization performance. According to Muthimi & Kilika (2018), the internal contextual factors considered include among others; the organization resource availability, organization structure, organization culture and organizational complexity. The interested parties to the organization were also found to play a big role in shaping up the organizational performance. These include individuals or other persons that brings value to an organization. These may include among others the customer, employees, government, suppliers, and creditors. An understanding of the needs and their expectations from the organization result in a positive contribution towards achievement of sustainable success for an entity. However, the needs and expectations may take other various forms that may include, cooperation, collaboration negotiation, and outsourcing or by terminating an activity.
To gain a comprehensive understanding of the organizational context, empirical study done by Urgo (2014) observed that the focus of organization context on strategy differed at different levels of strategy in the organization. Whereas at the strategic level, focus is based on needs that are of long term nature for the organization and appropriate for the business management continuity, the focus at the business or tactical level, is purely on processes within the organization context to ensure that the business management system is effective such as process workflows. Finally, at the operational level, the focus is on the required metrics in the organization such as job description and work environment to ensure that the business management system is efficient (ISO 9001:2015). In order for an organization to meet these standards for achieving an effective performance in the ever changing dynamic environment, practice of leadership strategy by the leaders in the organization is paramount. However, despite the need for appropriate leadership, studies on organization performance and organization context in which it operates are still limited and hence an area of concern in the field of strategic management requiring more research.

Organizational performance
Just like leadership, organizational performance is a broad construct and has been found to manifest itself differently in forms and levels (Yammarino, Spangler, & Bass, 1993). Cambridge dictionary (2015) describes performance as a system or way of how a person or group of persons does work and therefore can be realized at individual, team level or organization level. On the other hand, March & Sulton (1997) defines organization as instruments of purpose. Various researches have attributed organizational performance as an umbrella of several variables such as efficiency, outcomes and business model effectiveness. Randeree et al (2009) describes organizational performance in terms of organization ability to effectively implement strategies to achieve set objectives through people. Kocoglu (2010) defines performance in terms of effectiveness and efficiency while organizational performance as an enterprise ability to achieve the set objectives such as quality product, large market share and high profits. Organizational performance has also been defined as means to transformation inputs into outputs aimed to achieve given outcomes (Chen et al, 2005).
Studies in literature have shown that the operationalization of organization performance has faced challenges in terms of its measurements being on finance and non-finance aspect while forgetting the importance of customer and organizational employee satisfaction indices as performance measures for an organization. According to an empirical study done by Scott & Davis (2016), there is no one standard system used to measure organizational performance. Muthimi & Kilika (2018), found that there were various criteria's for measuring performance in an organization in different perspectives. These included; financial measures such as return on investment (ROI), efficiency and effectiveness, market related measures of performance which include; product leadership, market share growth, increase in sales, customer satisfaction and quality products, public responsibility and shareholders return e.g. dividends. In spite of these measures, there has been a growing concern regarding performance of organizations in relation to its key resource-the human capital or employee centered measures that include; employee satisfaction, innovation leadership, psychological commitment and employee trust.
Performance improvements are the key issues leaders and managers of organizations are facing and implementing within their guidelines in order to update their business operations. Managers must continually think strategically in terms of appropriate strategies to gain a competitive edge over other businesses since there are other contributing factors in firms other than leadership passé that contribute to performance (Lieberson and O'comer, 1972). Thus, leadership in organization must develop capabilities that will result in readiness for organizational changes that is geared towards improving performance and attaining a competitive advantage over other organizations through situation adaptation and flexibility, development of learning culture and managing change. This is in line with concept of attribution theory where impact of leadership on performance is seen as a social construct implying that other antecedents may be at play to determine level of performance other than presence of leadership. This calls for appropriate leadership strategy to be re conceptualized due to change of time and the volatility of the environment for organizations to visualize improved performance.

Theoretical Review
Whereas the conceptual literature review tried to link the constructs of leadership strategy, organizational capabilities and organization context with construct of organizational performance, the theoretical literature review on the other hand focused on review of relevant theories underpinning the understanding the constructs of leadership strategy, organizational capabilities, and organization context and organization performance. This section of the study discussed some of the theories that anchored the constructs that were found relevant for the conceptualization of the study. These included Pasmore model as lead theory, Path-Goal Theory, Contingency theory, Transformational Leadership Theory, Resource Based View and Upper Echelon Theory.

Pasmore Model
Pasmore model is built on research done by William Pasmore (2014) on developing leadership strategy and later expounded by Muthimi & Kilika (2018) in their study entitled, "Leadership strategy, Behavioural focus and Firm performance". Studies in literature have recognized effective leadership as an important area of focus and hence this has made organizations to change their thinking about the business and its continuity through management of people in quantity and quality. Although Pasmore model is still young in its development, the model rest on this premise that organizations can continually sustain their competitive advantage if focus is shifted towards proper acquisition of leaders. Nachimas &Nachimas (2004) argue that scientist begin process of research by forming concepts for describing empirical world and these concepts form foundation of communication, introduce perspectives and are symbol of phenomenon. In addition to forming as components of theory, they allow scientists to classify and generalize. Pasmore model is therefore built on these arguments and from research done by William Pasmore (2014) on developing leadership strategy and later expounded by Muthimi & Kilika (2018) in their study entitled, "Leadership strategy, Behavioural focus and Firm performance". The model is based on the premises that for organization to achieve its intended strategic change aim towards improving performance and business continuity in terms of supporting more creativity, innovations and other organization growth agendas, focus should be placed more on analysis of leadership requirements. This calls for a shift of focus on critical ingredients of leadership for organizational success. Pasmore (2014) in his study about developing a leadership strategy raises serious concerns on why some known best organizations were performing below par and failing to successfully implement their already existing strategic plans and others failing to adapt to environmental changes as a result of intense competitive landscape, while still others failing to concern about the uncertain future and get prepared for it. He attributed this turmoil facing organizations more to do with leadership hence sought to develop a leadership strategy driven by the business strategy to guide organizations in strive to achieve their intended strategy. Pasmore identified five dimensions of leadership strategy to guide organizations in re-focusing their business strategies. This included analyzing the quantity of leaders needed by the organization over projected employee turnover and other growth needs of the firm over at least the next 5 years, the qualities needed by these leaders at selection such as demographics and diversity, the required skills and behaviours, in driving the business strategy, the required leaders capabilities when working together as a team in matters such as problem solving, developing talents, formulating and implementing strategies, and finally the developed leadership culture. The study concluded that organization leaders should rethink of development of leadership strategy that will drive effectively the business strategy to ensure organization success since without proper leadership, developed organization strategies may not see the light of the day but remain a dream.

Path-goal theory
The Path-goal theory of leadership is credited to the work done by Martin G. Evans in 1970 and refined in1971 by Robert J House. The theory argues that leaders motivate their followers in a task by involving in behaviours that enhance subordinates' abilities such as rewarding performance and belief that the results of certain outcomes are worthwhile. Northouse (2010) asserts that effective leadership occurs when subordinate's achievement is diagnosed in a given situation of task and an appropriate leadership style adopted to match the situation. Thus, the leaders' behavior needs to be matched with the subordinates' characteristics in a work environment. The path-goal theory therefore predicts the behaviour of leaders in an organization and this is essential for enhancing subordinate's motivation linking it to organizational performance. The implementation of this theory goes a long way in improving subordinate's motivation by clarifying strategic direction that makes improvement in the organization performance possible.

Contingency theory
The contingency theory stipulates that there is no best or special or unique leadership style that transcends in all organizational situations but it all depends on both the internal and external factors facing the organization at that particular situation. This implies that what is effective in some circumstances could have no or little effect in others. The theory was proposed by an Austrian psychologist Fred Fiedlers in 1946 who found leaders to be motivated by either the task or the relationship at workplace and thus continually influence or manipulate the situation of leadership at hand to achieve their objectives in terms of leading style and amount of control exerted within the situation (Sinding & Waldstrom, 2014). The theory argues that depending on the organization situations, leaders can adapt leadership style that best suit the situation at the workplace. Gachingiri (2015) asserts that organization success or failures in achieving set goals is greatly attributed to leadership operating in the organization at the time. Effective leadership therefore adapts leadership style basing on the group type, the existing situation and the goals to be attained. This implies that the organization leaders must be very careful when choosing potential leaders to drive the organization in achieving its vision. This is how the study of leadership strategy is anchored to this theory.

Transformational leadership theory
Transformational leadership is traced to work done by McGregor Burns in the year 1978 and later in the year 1985, the theory was expounded to enhance the meaning by Bernard Bass. The theory blends both behavioral theories with traits theories by making subordinates more informed of the importance of assigned tasks and expected performance, needs for individual growth and development. This enhances their motivation to work and accomplish set targets for the success of the organization. This theory therefore offers an approach that is rational on how leaders reward and motivate followers for achievement of organization goals hence enhancing organization performance. An understanding of this theory in leadership is important since it stimulates subordinates intellectually by instilling in then feelings of admiration, confidence and commitment and also providing strategic thinking in solving problems. The importance of transformational leadership in relation to the construct of leadership strategy is paramount in identifying the right quantity of leaders with desired qualities for an organization with required skills, behaviours, and capabilities and appropriate leadership culture.

Resource based view theory
This Resource Based View (RBV) theory was developed by Penrose (1959) and then later expounded by Wernerfelt (1984), Barney (1991) and Corner (1991). Proponents of the theory asserts that firms are heterogeneous because they possess resources that are heterogeneous in nature i.e. Valuable, Rare, inimitable and Nonsubstitutable (VRIN). Resources are valuable or rare when they are relatively of high cost in acquiring them such as airplane or very scarce to acquire such as diamonds. On the other hand, resources are hard to be imitated by competitors if they are either protected legally such as trademarks, patents, copyrights or are very hard to copy due to unique features set the organization. This is the essence of effective leadership in the organization. The resource becomes non-substitutable when competition fail to get alternative resource that can offer the same benefits provided by the resource. The focus therefore lies with the leaders in the organization on use of internal resources to maximize on derived benefits by identifying assets, competencies and capabilities that will offer the potential to give an organization a competitive advantage over others. Even though the theory focuses on internal environment and not external, postulates of the theory are relevant to the study of leadership strategy in strategic management.

Upper Echelon theory
The upper echelon theory is traced back to work done by Hambrick and Mason in 1984. The theory was found on the premises that organizational performance is influenced directly by the competencies, experience and skills of leaders holding key managerial roles in an organization (Hambrick & Mason, 1984). These characteristics are essential predictor of leadership strategy and organizational performance. According to Hambrick and Mason (1984) an organization is reflection of the Top Management Team (TMT) since they play a big role in ensuring future survival of the organization and attainment of its performance through effective leadership. The theory therefore stipulates that perception of TMT about the organization and its environment as a result of their formed cognitive base and values influences the decision making of required appropriate strategic choices to enhance performance. Thus, top managers' personal characteristics determine the way they view things and decision made regarding strategic direction for the organization which may ultimately affects performance. Thus, this theory supports work done by Pasmore (2014) and Muthimi & Kilika (2018) on essentials of leadership strategy in terms of the organization acquiring the right quantity and quality of the leaders by focusing on the characteristics of the TMT and their leadership roles in managing organizations on diverse backgrounds. This is because the main variables in this theory of upper echelon includes age, work experience-and educational background that are useful in providing demographic background information for required leaders which form leadership quality characteristics for enhancing organizational performance.

The case for a new Theoretical model
The literature so far reviewed has considered the theoretical, conceptual and empirical literature on the construct of leadership strategy. The reviewed literature has raised critical points in the emerging scholarly conversation in strategic management regarding the role of leadership. First, the literature has raised an important observation regarding the scope of the application based on the earlier conceptualization of the construct of leadership strategy. While previous scholarship considered the construct from the narrow perspective of the phase of strategy implementation only, the discussions carried out in this paper have demonstrated that the components of leadership strategy have a role to play in the earlier phases of strategic management that precede implementation touching on formulation and choice. Thus, an important lesson raised is that of expansion of the scope of conceptualization of strategic leadership beyond implementation and facilitating a logical approach by which the components of the strategy will apply at the various levels of strategy as has been articulated in the strategic management literature (Pearce &Robinson, 2012) The second point arises from the effect of the deployment of a leadership strategy in a firm. We note that the application of this construct into the systems of an organization brings the potential of initiating a sequence of outcomes that are typical of a firm strategic behavior in which other constructs come into play as the behavior roles out. We draw our insight into this from two considerations: the nature of leadership itself and the nature of strategic thinking both of which are fundamental to explaining firm strategic behaviour. According to Liedtka (1998), strategic thinking reflects a unique particular way of thinking by leaders in an organization with a very distinct and clearly identifiable characteristics. This particular way of thinking with an effective leadership strategy in place, brings about a positive impact on future of the organization in-terms of improved performance. Leadership strategy brings on board certain aspects of leadership which can be construed to imply a strategic resource. One school of thought that considers management as an economic resource at the disposal of an organization is critical in our analysis for advancing an argument that leadership strategy becomes a type of resource that brings about other intermediate and ultimate outcomes. As the concern in resource-based perspectives is how to sustain performance for the foreseeable future, two possibilities are suggested, namely capabilities that are enacted into the systems that host the leadership as the basis for sustaining the main point of focus of any strategy, performance.
Thus, within a linear path of reasoning, two constructs become relevant to the phenomenon, capabilities and firm performance. In terms of the nature of strategic thinking, we observe that the emerging phenomenon is understood in the context of the defining characteristics of strategic thinking whereby two pillars stand out: focus on the firm's future and the external environment that constrains the attainment of that future. The external environment is particularly important because leadership studies acknowledge the role of the context in which the leadership is applied and so the need for a contingent and situational approach to leadership. Therefore, in addition to the two constructs fitting in the linear path of the identified behaviour, the paper suggests that the context of the application of leadership strategy will play a contingent role in this behavior.
What now emerges clearly is a true phenomenon that shapes the direction of strategic management. In order to move ahead to demonstrate that leadership strategy is important in strategic management, it is our suggestion that the phenomenon needs to be explained and documented so that its constructs can be defined and components identified. From a conceptual viewpoint, the construct of leadership strategy has been explained by various aspects that include the concept of leadership and its nature, meaning and components. According to work done by Pasmore (2014) and later advanced by Muthimi & Kilika (2018) operationalization of role of leadership strategy can be realized through analysis of five key indicators namely: the required quantity of leaders' strategy, required quality of leaders' strategy, the skill and behaviour strategy, leaders' capabilities strategy and required leaders culture strategy.
The most appropriate way in a scientific way to capture this phenomenon is through a theoretical framework. According to Nachimas &Nachimas (2004) scientist begin process of research by forming concepts for describing empirical world and these concepts form foundation of communication, introduce perspectives and are symbol of phenomenon. In addition to forming as components of theory, they allow scientists to classify and generalize. Thus, new source of knowledge advanced from scholarly and scientific backgrounds require a foundation base that act as a support for the acquired knowledge. This is also in agreement with ideas of Senge (1990) and Moore (1993) who stressed on the importance of developing mental models that influence leaders behaviour that make leaders focus more on creativity and innovation.
Thus, based on the foregoing arguments, the reviewed theoretical and conceptual literature and list of selected reviewed empirical studies built on this knowledge, we find evidence of the existence of this phenomenon. The studies can generally be classified into four streams namely; leadership strategy, organizational capabilities, context and performance. In reference to the first stream, Sophia & Kevin (2017) investigated the role of leaders in achieving organizational outcomes in Australian firms and established a relation between leadership systems and performance. Ellen (2012) investigated on organizational leadership practices that encourage culture of strategic thinking in USA firms and established a positive relationship between leadership practices and culture of strategic thinking leading to improved organizational performance. Karamat (2013) investigated on the impact of leadership on organizational performance in service sectors in Turkey and established a relationship between adapted leadership behaviours' and performance. Mastrangelo (2013) investigated on effect of enduring leadership and organizational performance in firms in New York City and established that both personal and professional leadership impacted positively on employee performance. From a local context, Kitonga (2017) investigated on effect of strategic leadership practices on organizational performance in not-For profit organizations in Nairobi county in Kenya and established a strong positive correlation between practiced strategic leadership in general and organizational performance. The study concluded that effective strategic leadership leads to improved performance for not-For profit organization indicating a strong impact of leadership behaviours'.
The second stream of empirical studies focused on effects of organizational capabilities as instrumental intermediate variable. Kurmat and Vadi (2010) investigated on measurement tool for the evaluation of organizational leadership capability and established that measurement of organizational capability that exist both at individual leadership and at collective level was important parameter for improving organizational performance in the long run. Nguyen (2018) investigated on effect of firm capabilities on performance in relation to responsiveness to environmental context and business relationships and established that inclusion of capabilities in an organization enhances performance through appropriate leadership strategy. Sofia (2009) investigated on the effect of internal organizational motivational capabilities on performance in Spanish firms and established a positive correlation between practiced internal capabilities and performance.
The third stream of empirical studies focused on role of organizational context as a key contingent variable. A study done by Rodriquez (2009) on environmental engagement and firm performance established that an organization can enhance outcomes of its environmental engagement through understanding of the importance of leadership involvement in its diverse functional units and by continuously assessing their outcomes. Shoemaker and Steven (2015) investigated on effect of the uncertainties in the environment on leadership and strategy and established desired leadership qualities and skills were instrumental in overcoming these barriers. From the foregoing discussions, it is clearly shown that the discussions on the construct of leadership strategy and performance is still scanty and this calls for more in-depth investigation on the role of leadership strategy in the context of strategic management through a well-defined theoretical model. Thus, based on the need to have a framework for the new theoretical model, it is our opinion that this rich diversity of advanced new knowledge arising from both conceptual and empirical backgrounds will form a foundation base for generation of appropriate constructs and supportive indicators and understanding of their operationalization in practice other than in theory.
From the above logic, we find that there is need to move to new frontiers of knowledge by clearly documenting this phenomenon through a theoretical model. As a result of the emerging phenomenon, it is the authors' opinion that this window opens a basis for expressing the phenomenon in form of a theory through construction of a new theoretical model for further empirical investigations that will guide future researchers in understanding clearly the constructs under study. From an epistemological thinking, a theoretical model is important as it constitutes the acceptable knowledge in the field of study. Nachmias & Nachmias (2004) asserts that before carrying out any empirical research, the ideas and underlying theories needs to be formulated first. According to Johansson (2004), these developed theories need to be categorized according to scope and functions to cause a meaning. Thus, we find that various research studies use the logic of both deductive and inductive reasoning and approaches in explaining mechanisms that lead to operationalizing concepts that allow for quantitative measurements of established facts empirically (Trochin, 2006).

THE PROPOSED THEORETICAL MODEL
The reviewed literature has clearly brought about the understanding of the construct of leadership strategy, the emerging phenomenon and nature of their relationship at different levels of strategic management process that enable better understanding of its role in the context of strategic management In view of the above arguments, sets of previous research done and the identified emerging gaps observed in reviewed literature, the author is of the view that to integrate leadership with studies in strategic management, a new model that is premised on the constructs of leadership strategy, organizational capabilities, organization context and performance need to be constructed to provide a better understanding about the linkages of the constructs and the role played by each construct in building the emerging phenomenon. The new model is as summarized in figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Proposed Theoretical Model on linkage between Leadership Strategy and Organization Performance
From the above theoretical framework, the effect of leadership strategy on organizational performance is measured using five indicators namely; the quantity of required leaders, the quality of leaders, the leader's skills and behaviours, leaders' culture and leaders' capabilities. These indicators are also measured using sub-indices to establish the in-depth effects of the relationship. The organization performance as a dependent construct is measured using financial, market related, employee centered and readiness to change measures. The framework has incorporated the construct of organizational capabilities as mediator in explaining the relationship that link leadership strategy and performance. The key indicators for this construct are employee empowerment, creativity, innovativeness and process improvement. In order to assess the strength of this relationship, organizational context has been added to the framework as a moderating construct. The understanding of the organization context requires an organization to determine both the internal and external issues that are relevant to the purpose and strategic direction of the organization and that affects its ability to achieve intended quality results. In this study, the indicators that measure the external context include; the statutory and regulatory requirements, competitive landscape and stakeholders needs and expectations whereas the indicators for measuring the internal context issues include; resource availability, organization structure, culture and complexity.

Leadership Strategy and Organization performance
Extant literature in strategic management has shown that at corporate level of strategy, the top management team (TMT) is responsible for all firm's decisions and all commitments necessary to achieve competitiveness and increases in its revenue accumulations. It is at this level that leadership plays a bigger role in strategic management due to greater emphasis being laid on strategic thinking for the organization future, development of vision and mission statements, formulation of strategies for implementation, strategic positioning of the organization in the market, strategic innovations and options. As proposed by Pasmore (2014), the deployment of leadership strategy in an organization as derived from the adopted formulated business strategy in the firm focuses on attainment of performance to desired levels by management in implementing its business strategy through its motivation effects of available competencies. Whereas the construct of leadership strategy has been operationalized through the identified five indicators namely; quantity of leadership required, quality of leadership, leaders skill and behaviour, leaders culture and leaders collective capabilities as pointed out by pasmore (2014), its deployment is expected to usher new direction of strategic thinking for the purpose of offering direction that focus on attainment of desired level of performance in an organization through formulation and implementation of its business strategy.
Therefore, we therefore propose that;

The role of organizational capabilities.
The concept of organizational capabilities has been viewed as strategic resource in strategic management studies with a lot of interests by various researchers as a major component of an organization strategy and when tapped give rise to use of capabilities and competence that lead to sustainable performance in an organization. Shoemaker and Amit (1993) found organizational capability as a means by which resources are deployed in an organization through effective leadership aimed to achieve a desired end. These observations and with reference to arguments raised in RBV theory that organizations are heterogeneous entities with bundle of resources that have unique characteristics that are difficult to duplicate due to their valuability, Rarity, inimitability and non-substitutability, leaders should focus on use of their internal resources to maximize on derived benefits by identifying capabilities that gives an organization a competitive advantage over others.
In this regard, we find organizational capability a strong resource within an organization that unleashes capabilities into the organizational system that give rise to improved performance and competences as a means of sustaining targets for superior performance Thus, within a linear path of reasoning, we are of the opinion that the construct of organizational capabilities is relevant to this study since it enables leaders in the organization able to exploit all areas that give it a competitive advantage in order to develop appropriate strategies that enhance value to the customer (O' Sullivan, 2011).
Muthimi & Kilika (2018) argued that employee empowerment, creativity, innovativeness and process improvement by leaders within an organization were found as critical indicators of organizational capabilities that give an organization a sustainable competitive advantage over others in a dynamic environment. This is in line with path-goal theory that stipulates that followers are motivated by their leaders by involving them in behaviours' that result in worthwhile outcomes for the organization and who in turn motivates their subordinates leading to improved organizational performance. Thus, the deployment of leadership strategy in organization is expected to give rise to organizational capabilities as a form of competencies required to improve performance in terms of employee empowerment, creativity and innovativeness and improvement of business processes. We therefore propose that;

The role of organization context
Based on the literature discussed in this paper, it can be concluded that organizations are unique entities and environment in which they operate plays a significant role in determining the leadership system adopted by those in leadership. From arguments raised in situational leadership theory perspective, leadership is flexible and it adapts to the existing work environment and the needs of the organization for survival. The contingency theory on the other hand stipulates that there is no best or unique style of leadership that transcends in all organizational situations but it all depends on both the internal and external factors facing the organization at that particular situation. This is in line with Stojanovic (2014) who asserts that organization context is relatively a new concept in organizations that require them to observe issues arising from their internal and external environment that have an impact on the organization leadership.
The unpredictable situation of the external environment and the many surprises it brings on organizations makes leaders concur that there is congruence between the strategies being formulated and implemented and the organization context in which the firm operates. This has made organization context be viewed as a source of roadblocks to smooth implementation of organization strategy. At the deployment of leadership strategy, considerations of factors both in the internal and external environments within the organization will play a key role in achievement if intended strategy. Whereas factors to consider within the external environment will include: statutory and regulatory requirements, competitive landscape and stakeholders' needs and expectations, the key dimensions within the internal environment will include: resource availability, organization structure, organization culture and its complexity. From this argument on value of external organization context and the expected role leadership is to play in the organization, we therefore propose that;

Conclusion and Recommendation.
The purpose of this study was first to examine the extant conceptual literature review on the constructs of leadership strategy and organization performance. The study also considered the effects of organizational capabilities and organization context as mediating and moderating constructs respectively on the relationship between leadership strategy and organization performance. Secondly, the study reviewed the relevant theoretical literature underpinning the leadership strategy and the corresponding phenomenon; thirdly, it reviewed previous empirical literature and emerging gaps identified that formed the basis for further research on deployment of leadership strategy in an organizational context. From the reviewed literature the construct of leadership strategy is not fully developed in the main stream of strategic management phenomenon, however, it is clear that the future of organizations in terms of sustainability and business continuity will depends on the decision of incorporating the principle of leadership strategy in this main stream. Past empirical studies have also shown variety discrepancies in their analysis of the construct of leadership strategy and organizational performance. From the review of extant conceptual, theoretical and empirical literature, the construct of leadership strategy has been argued to have a place at all levels of strategic management through the processes of strategy formulation, implementation and evaluation resulting in improvement of organization performance. It therefore plays an important role in implementation of the organization's business strategy and business continuity that lead to improved performance of the organization putting into consideration the mediating effect played by the constructs of organization workforce capabilities and the moderating effect of the organization context in which the organization operates on the relationship between leadership strategy and organization performance.
From the above proposed conceptual model and propositions, the author suggests further future research on the constructs be carried out including their operational indicators and the direction of relationships of both mediating and moderating variables as indicated in the proposed propositions through development of suitable measuring instruments for collecting primary data and application of suitable statistical techniques to confirm these hypotheses. • Determining when to match, where to match and at what level to match formulated strategies.

Quality of leadership
• Formulate strategies that determine required leaders' characteristics in terms of demographic, diversity, background, education level, and experience for entire organization.
• Determine targeted demographic and diversity in terms of levels and location through recruitment and hiring process.

Skills and Behaviour
• Articulation of generic behavioural competencies for all leaders in the organization • Carry out required specific skill, knowledge gaps in the organization.

Leadership Capability
• Formulating strategies by providing direction and alignment of generated commitment as a whole leadership team.

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Growing the business in other new markets.

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Compliance with consistent set of values, beliefs and actions across the organization and talent development.

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Engage employees in decision making and solving problems that require collaboration across boundaries.

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Being responsive to organization's customers' demands.

Leadership Culture
• Formulating strategies that exhibit degree of dependence, interdependence or independence among the business leaders.

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Exhibit leadership style that is in conformed to the majority of the organization leaders such as controloriented, participative or Laissez faire.
• Set up key leadership practices that are shared across the organization such as engaging employees, accepting responsibility, being customer focused and embrace opportunities that lead to improvements for the business.

Quality of leadership
• Formulate strategies that determine required leaders' characteristics in terms of demographic, diversity, background, education level, and experience in the business unit.
• Determine targeted diversity in terms of levels, specialty and appropriate placement at the business unit.

Skills and Behaviour
• Formulating of generic behavioural competencies required by leaders in the business unit.
• Implement specific skill, knowledge gaps required by leaders in the business unit. Leadership Capability

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Formulating strategies derived from the corporate strategy by ensuring compliance with a consistent set of values, beliefs and actions across the business unit • Development of talent.
• Implement successful innovation, • Engage employees in decision making, solving problems and customer demands at the business unit. Leadership Culture

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Formulating strategies that exhibit degree of dependence, independence or interdependence among enterprise leaders at the business unit.
• Set up leadership practices in the business unit such as engaging employees, embracing opportunities to make improvements and being customer focused. Functional Quantity of leadership Formulating strategies derived from the business unit in consistent with set of values, beliefs and actions across the business unit and development of talent.

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Solving problems and customer demands at the function level. Leadership Culture

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Formulating strategies that exhibit degree of dependence, independence or interdependence at the functional level.
• Engage employees to achieve set objectives • Being customer focused. • Embrace opportunity to make necessary improvements.