Introduction
Strategic Leadership is one of the most important leadership styles that make it necessary to have strategic thinking in the field of urban management with regard to the acceptance of the strategic approach in the field of planning theory. According to the researchers, strategic leadership is appropriate for a space with a sustainable competitive advantage (competitiveness for sustainable development) that is coupled with a strategic look to the sustainability of the operating leadership of the leading organization. In other words, learning how to adopt strategic thinking in developmental policies; guiding effective changes in the field of practice as well as providing instructive experiences to the structural body (human resources) to address the changes and challenges are prominent features that strategic leadership can be created in their own organization. It is clear that having strategic thinking, spirit, and knowledge-based attitudes is one of the basic needs to guide the development and transformation of modern cities, what it is seen as behavioral change and transition from management to leadership in a strategic leadership approach. This point is based on the strategic planning framework defined for urban development, and with regard to the most prominent features such as developing a strategy for empowerment development and the guidance of members and the environment for problem-solving creativity and strategic thinking for conducting and formulating knowledge cores for evaluation and policy. Addressing the challenges of the organization's internal and external environment can improve many of the weaknesses in the metropolitan management process of cities in developing countries. The challenges of urban management in metropolitan cities such as Isfahan can be attendant, in addition to the problems of increasing population growth and gross disorientation, to weak in balancing the allocation process and providing it for infrastructure and strategic development projects, Strong lack of a robust approach to creating creative human capital and knowledge to solve the challenges and lack of clear and transparent policies to support and support social capital and approaches to dealing with these challenges and lack of planning and vision making to develop. Challenges that can be addressed both within the organization and in the external dimension in terms of behavioral changes and failure to resist these transformative and changing changes, such as the strategic leadership approach. In this regard we have tried to identify strategic leadership main factors in the process of Isfahan metropolis management and their structural relationship.
Materials and Methods
The present study has been conducted with a descriptive-analytical methodology. The most important descriptive part of this study is to collect the variables that explain the strategic leadership approach using the documentary and interview methodology, which according to the objective of the study to identify the strategic drivers of operational leadership in order to realize it in the urban management process of the metropolitan city of Isfahan. In this regard, at first, 28 key and explanatory variables were extracted and collected for strategic leadership of the sources and backgrounds of the subject. Then, by using the Delphi method in two stages, 15 experts from the first stage of the study: the preliminary study and assessment and the second stage: re-examination and deletion, finalization and final confirmation with regard to the frequency of verification of the variables .In fact, in the final stage, the experts confirmed the final confirmation (with a high consensus) among 28 variables, due to the semantic and functional similarities of the variables together and the similarity of some variables with other leadership styles. The analytical section of the present study was carried out in a descriptive-surveyed manner and questionnaires tools, in accordance with the quality of the subject and its explanatory variables. In this regard, the target community at this stage was 60 experts and experts related to the field. The Structural Equation Modeling (AMOS) model was used to answer the questions.
Discussion and Results
The operational rotation in the form of modeling of possible propulsion in the analytic space performed by exploratory factor analysis shows that there are three main factors that have the explanatory 17 variables based on the factor load of conceptual and operational explanation .According to the interpretation of the results of the first impulse under the heading of knowledge-based developments, with 0.81 overall reliability coefficient, the second proponent, entitled Emotional Evolution, with a coefficient of 0.83 and a third, is based on interactions based on changes in the coefficient of reliability of 0.84 detected. In the following, the confirmatory factor structure showed that the evolution of knowledge based transformations and interactive-oriented transformations with a 0.62 weighted regression had the highest amount of structural relation. Then knowledge based transformation and empowering transformations with 0.59 and finally empowering transformations and interactions-oriented changes with the 0.58 weighted regression had significant structural relation.
Conclusions
In this research, the strategic leadership of three dimensions was identified and characterized by pursuing strategic leadership in urban management studies and specifically for managing the metropolitan city of Isfahan. First, this change involves managers and policy makers of the Isfahan metropolis, which rely on the changes in approach and attitude based on knowledge developments. Second, these changes will occur in the human resources of the metropolitan city of Isfahan, which will lead to the empowerment and creativity of human resources that can be a source of many issues and challenges. This point can lead to accelerated approaches to solving the challenges of urban development at a low level and not needing more time for them. Finally, this change is reflected in the interaction with other organizations and institutions, and in particular its citizenship community. Interactive evolution emphasizes a collaborative approach based on a strategic approach to identifying weaknesses, strengths, opportunities, and threats for solving challenges in two-way and multi-agent interactions that can be very important. Therefore, it can be mentioned that the urban management of Isfahan metropolitan area in order to realize strategic leadership requires a change in its organizational culture and acceptance of changes in behaviors that have roots of a centralized and traditional context. In this regard, knowledge-based developments, empowerment developments, and interactions given the characteristics mentioned, it is accepted and applied.