Strategic Leadership and Vision Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Advanced Certificate on completion
Who attends Senior Managers, Directors and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-LD-223

Before you join: Participants should have at least five years of management experience and current responsibility for a team, function, programme, business unit or significant strategic initiative.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Senior leaders are expected to set direction when markets, regulation, stakeholder expectations and operating conditions are uncertain. They must turn incomplete information into credible choices, explain why those choices matter, secure commitment from influential stakeholders and keep execution focused when priorities compete. Many organisations have strong operational managers but lack leaders who can connect external signals, long-term ambition, investment decisions and day-to-day action.

This course develops the strategic judgement and visionary thinking needed to lead at enterprise, business-unit or major-function level. Participants assess external forces using PESTLE, Five Forces and scenario planning; formulate a compelling future position; test strategic options; and translate choices into objectives, measures, initiatives and governance routines. The programme also addresses stakeholder influence, board-level communication, innovation portfolios, organisational alignment, change leadership and ethical decision-making. Participants learn to distinguish a motivating vision from a vague aspiration, and a strategy from a list of projects.

The five-day instructor-led format combines concise briefings with sector-based cases, facilitated group analysis, decision simulations and structured peer challenge. Participants work with realistic situations such as a bank responding to digital competitors, a public agency managing policy change, or a multinational reallocating capital across markets. Each participant leaves with a strategic leadership application dossier containing an external context analysis, strategic narrative, option assessment, execution scorecard and 90-day action plan. The course is available in classroom settings in 50+ cities or live online. Participants who complete the course receive a certificate of completion.

The course is particularly suited to experienced managers moving into enterprise leadership, directors leading transformation, and executives responsible for strategy execution across several functions or regions.

What you will be able to do

  • Diagnose strategic context using PESTLE, Five Forces, signal assessment and scenario planning
  • Formulate a credible vision, strategic narrative and future-back roadmap
  • Evaluate strategic options using decision criteria, assumption mapping and pre-mortem analysis
  • Translate strategic choices into strategy maps, OKRs, initiatives and governance routines
  • Align operating-model elements, decision rights and resource allocation with strategic priorities
  • Lead innovation portfolios using Three Horizons, discovery metrics and investment guardrails
  • Influence boards, executives and managers through stakeholder analysis and decision-focused communication
  • Develop a 90-day strategic leadership application plan with measurable commitments

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Produces a defensible strategic recommendation under uncertainty
  • Communicates a future direction with greater clarity and credibility
  • Improves board and executive conversations through decision-focused evidence
  • Builds a reusable method for converting strategy into execution priorities
  • Creates a personal leadership charter and 90-day implementation plan

For your organisation

  • Improves strategic choices through explicit assumptions, criteria and risk testing
  • Creates stronger alignment between vision, investment, measures and initiatives
  • Reduces duplicated activity through clearer decision rights and accountabilities
  • Increases commitment to change through credible stakeholder communication
  • Strengthens leadership pipeline readiness for enterprise-level responsibilities

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can distinguish strategic leadership responsibilities from operational management and define their leadership mandate.

  • Strategic leadership responsibilities distinguished from operational management and functional expertise
  • Leadership mandate mapped across board, executive, business-unit and frontline levels
  • Vroom-Yetton-Jago decision model matched to decision significance and team commitment
  • Power-interest grids identify sponsors, blockers, informed parties and consultation priorities
  • Strategic issues framed through choices, trade-offs, assumptions and consequences
  • Executive time allocation audited against long-term value creation priorities

Participants can interpret external change and identify the uncertainties that should shape strategic choices.

  • PESTLE analysis separates external drivers, uncertainties, trends and constraints
  • Porter's Five Forces tests industry attractiveness, power and profit pools
  • Signals distinguished from noise using source credibility, timing and relevance
  • Scenario axes built from high-impact, high-uncertainty external forces
  • Implications matrices connect plausible futures to strategic choices and indicators
  • Competitor hypotheses tested against observable moves, capabilities and incentives

Participants can articulate a credible future position and communicate its strategic logic to different audiences.

  • Vision statements specify future position, beneficiaries, distinctive contribution and time horizon
  • Purpose, mission, vision and values separated to prevent strategic ambiguity
  • Future-back planning identifies milestones between desired destination and current reality
  • Strategic narrative links external change, ambition, choices and employee contribution
  • Metaphors and vivid evidence make abstract strategic direction memorable
  • Message architecture adapts vision communication for boards, managers and frontline teams

Participants can assess competing strategic options and make recommendations with explicit assumptions and trade-offs.

  • Playing-to-Win cascade connects winning aspiration, arenas, advantage and management systems
  • Strategic options assessed through attractiveness, feasibility, acceptability and risk
  • Assumption mapping separates critical uncertainties from evidence-backed premises
  • Real-options logic stages commitments under uncertainty and preserves reversibility
  • Decision criteria weight stakeholder value, financial return, mission and resilience
  • Pre-mortem analysis exposes failure modes before resources are committed

Participants can convert strategic choices into objectives, measures, initiatives and review mechanisms.

  • Strategy maps translate strategic themes into linked objectives and causal hypotheses
  • OKRs distinguish outcome measures from activity lists and departmental tasks
  • Leading and lagging indicators establish review cadence and corrective action
  • Initiative portfolios sequence dependencies, owners, benefits and resource requirements
  • Balanced Scorecard perspectives test whether measures cover value drivers
  • Governance forums define escalation thresholds, decisions and accountability

Participants can align organisational design, resources and decision rights with strategic priorities.

  • Operating-model elements align structure, processes, capabilities, technology and governance
  • RACI matrices clarify decision rights, accountabilities, consultation and information flows
  • Resource allocation shifts talent, capital and management attention toward priorities
  • Cross-functional handoffs analysed for delays, duplication and conflicting incentives
  • Transformation roadmaps sequence quick wins, foundational work and strategic bets
  • Benefits-realisation plans assign measures, baselines, owners and review dates

Participants can manage innovation choices while protecting performance in the existing business.

  • Three Horizons separates core performance, emerging opportunities and future options
  • Ambidextrous leadership balances exploitation discipline with exploration and learning
  • Design thinking reframes stakeholder problems before solution selection
  • Business Model Canvas tests value proposition, channels, revenues and costs
  • Discovery metrics track learning velocity, adoption evidence and hypothesis quality
  • Portfolio guardrails define investment limits, risk appetite and termination criteria

Participants can build stakeholder commitment and present strategic decisions with clarity and authority.

  • Stakeholder salience assesses power, legitimacy, urgency and relationship priorities
  • Board papers present recommendation, evidence, options, risks and required decisions
  • Influence strategies match stakeholder interests, incentives, concerns and authority
  • Difficult strategic conversations use advocacy, inquiry and productive dissent
  • Negotiation preparation defines BATNA, interests, concessions and agreement boundaries
  • Communication cascades equip managers to translate strategy into local commitments

Participants can lead the behavioural and organisational changes required to realise a strategic direction.

  • Kotter's change model sequences urgency, coalition, vision and reinforcement
  • ADKAR diagnoses awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement gaps
  • Change-impact assessments identify role, process, technology and behavioural shifts
  • Resistance patterns interpreted as data about loss, trust and feasibility
  • Psychological safety supports upward challenge, learning and early risk reporting
  • Leadership routines reinforce desired behaviours through recognition, feedback and consequences

Participants can apply ethical judgement and create a disciplined plan for strategic leadership action.

  • Ethical decision tests examine rights, consequences, fairness and public scrutiny
  • ESG materiality connects strategic choices with environmental, social and governance risks
  • Risk appetite statements distinguish acceptable exposure from prohibited actions
  • Strategic leadership strengths assessed through feedback, reflection and behavioural evidence
  • Personal leadership charter defines commitments, triggers, routines and accountability partners
  • 90-day application plan schedules decisions, conversations, milestones and review dates

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. PESTLE and scenario planning worksheet
  2. Strategic vision and narrative template
  3. Strategic option assessment matrix
  4. Strategy map and OKR scorecard
  5. Stakeholder influence and communication plan
  6. 90-day strategic leadership application plan

Who should attend

  • Senior Managers — preparing to lead business-wide priorities and strategic change
  • Directors — responsible for turning corporate direction into measurable execution
  • Business Unit Heads — making choices on markets, investment and operating priorities
  • Functional Leaders — aligning cross-functional resources behind enterprise objectives
  • Transformation Leaders — coordinating major change programmes and stakeholder commitment
  • High-Potential Leaders — preparing for broader enterprise leadership responsibilities

Skills and tools covered

Strategic foresightVision formulationStrategic decision-makingStrategy executionStakeholder influenceChange leadership

Tools and standards

PESTLE analysis, Porter's Five Forces, Playing to Win, Balanced Scorecard

How the course runs

Training methodology

Short instructor briefings introduce the models and decision disciplines used by senior leaders. Participants analyse cases, interpret external signals, assess strategic options and build execution logic in small groups. Facilitated simulations develop board communication, stakeholder influence and difficult strategic conversations. Peer challenge tests assumptions, trade-offs and evidence quality. Individual application planning connects course methods to a current organisational priority, producing practical materials that participants can refine with their manager or sponsor after the programme.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have at least five years of management experience and current responsibility for a team, function, programme, business unit or significant strategic initiative. They should be familiar with basic business planning, performance measures and stakeholder management, and able to discuss a live organisational challenge without disclosing sensitive information. Experience presenting to senior managers is useful. An MBA, prior strategy qualification, financial modelling expertise or formal authority over a business unit is not required. The course does not teach introductory supervision or first-line people management.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

You should have substantial management experience and responsibility for a team, function, programme or strategic initiative. The course assumes familiarity with business planning and performance measures, but it does not require an MBA or previous strategy qualification.

Bring a current strategic challenge, change initiative or growth question that you can discuss without sharing confidential information. You will use it to shape your external analysis, strategic narrative and 90-day application plan.

It is designed for senior managers, directors, business-unit heads, functional leaders and transformation leaders. It is most valuable for people moving from operational leadership towards broader enterprise responsibility.

General management courses focus on running teams, budgets and operations, while people leadership courses concentrate on performance and engagement. This course focuses on setting strategic direction, making choices under uncertainty, aligning execution and influencing senior stakeholders.

The tools can be used for annual planning, transformation governance, investment decisions, market-entry questions and executive presentations. Participants leave with practical templates and a 90-day plan tied to a live priority.

The programme provides approximately 32.5 contact hours, usually from 08:30 to 16:30 each day. Time is divided across ten modules in teaching order, with briefings, cases, group analysis, simulations and individual application planning.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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