Mission of Column

(From: The essence of strategic leadership, The Jakarta Post, 7 May 2008, page 18, written by Prof. Dr. Kai-Alexander Schlevogt).

A magic dwells in each piece of new writing. Starting from today, The Jakarta Post will publish my column Prof. Kai on Strategic Leadership on the first and third Wednesday of each month. 

The mission of the column is to serve as a catalyst enabling executives serving in pioneering roles to achieve performance breakthroughs on multiple fronts, especially in emerging markets.

In particular, it aims at familiarizing them with my thought-provoking research on those aspects of leadership that exert a profound impact on both the company as a whole and its multi-faceted environment. The column adopts a holistic perspective, helping executives understand systemic root causes and dynamic effects of action. The marriage between strategy and leadership, which have been treated separately before, closes the gap between understanding and implementing. A key feature is my focus on tools that executives can immediately use in practice, including techniques that hone their mental and social skills. To add contextual richness, the column refers to a wide range of leaders and companies as examples. 

I will share with readers my hybrid experience as manager, consultant, professor and entrepreneur, drawing on 19 years of experience in emerging markets. My pioneering journey started as a country manager for a Germany insurance company, which is now part of AXA, in the former Soviet Union. I later served as McKinsey & Co. management consultant in Greater China and the first regular foreign professor at Peking University. My entrepreneurial instinct compelled me to set up a business school in Germany, focusing on emerging markets, especially China. After rejoining McKinsey, serving as a fellow of the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) in Shanghai, I was appointed as a professor of strategy and leadership at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School. 

I cordially invite readers to share their comments on my columns with me. My email address is: schlevogt@schlevogt.com