Empowering Leadership in Strategy Implementation

This study will focus on the importance of empowering leadership in strategy implementation. We hypothesize that when top management and middle management are aligned on strategic priorities, top management's role in empowering middle management during the strategy implementation process may impact organizational performance. Numerous studies exist regarding top management's role in strategy formulation, middle management's role in both strategy formulation and strategy implementation, and the importance of top management and middle management alignment on strategic priorities, but very few address the importance of empowering leadership during strategy implementation and its impact on organizational performance. A two-part national survey involving top managers and middle managers from 61 not-for-profit hospitals and health systems across the United States was conducted. Part one of the survey was completed by a single respondent from each organization's top management team. Part two of the survey was completed by respondents from each of the 61 organizations' middle management teams. The level of strategy alignment between top management and middle management on strategic priorities was measured in both the first and second surveys. Empowering leadership in strategy implementation was also assessed via a series of questions answered by the middle management respondents in the second survey. The findings were evaluated regarding their impact on organizational performance as measured by publicly available data on quality, safety, and service. The results of our first-stage moderated mediation regression analysis suggest that as the level of empowering leadership increases, the positive effect of strategy alignment on strategy implementation also increases. Given the study's sample size (N=61) however, further study is required to assess the indirect effect of strategy alignment on organizational performance through strategy implementation as moderated by empowering leadership.