Strategic Leadership in the 21st Century Humanitarian Organisations: A Preliminary Scoping Study; Stage One Analysis

This is a scoping exercise (funded by the Norwegian
and Swedish Governments) designed to define the
parameters and potential importance of strategic leadership,
in order to determine how best to proceed with the study,
itself, and its practical implications. In so doing, the exercise
is intended to open up discussions on four critical issues: (i)
the extent to which strategic leadership has a role in the
humanitarian sector; (ii) possible impact and consequences
of such leadership for the sector as a whole as well as for
individual organisations; (iii) institutional adjustments that
would be needed to provide an enabling environment for
strategic leadership; and (iv) types of research methodologies
necessary to explore the first three issues. In anticipation of
discussions to take place at HFP’s Stakeholders Forum in
November 2009, a preliminary review of the Scoping Exercise
took place on 29 October 2009 by a group of organisations
from the humanitarian, private sector and military sectors.
The results of that review are reflected in this paper.