Executive leadership is leadership at the top of an organization (Hambrick and Mason, 1984), “senior” leadership (Barnard, 1938; Heller, 1972), or “strategic” leadership (U.S. Department of the Army, 1993). Thus, the quality of an organization’s top leaders is a key determinant of its overall effectiveness and ongoing adaptability (Katz and Kahn, 1978). Those leading executive leadership processes typically oversee such business activities as fulfilling organizational goals, strategic planning development and overall decision making (Ben Cole, 2015).

In their planning and exercise of influence, executive leaders also are expected to balance many, usually conflicting, stakeholders, goals, demands, and obligations, both inside and outside the company. When leaders undertake these responsibilities effectively, their companies will likely perform well and, in a position, to adapt quickly to environmental dynamics (Zaccaro, 2001). High-quality senior leaders contribute significantly to the success and vitality of their organizations.

There are different executive leadership, namely servant leadership (Greenleaf, 1977), paternalistic leadership (Farh and Chen, 2000; Lin and Zhuang, 2018), participative leadership (and authentic leadership (Ilies, Morgeson & Nahrgang, 2005). Qualities of effective executive leaders include vision, transparency and accountability, problem-solving capabilities, emotional intelligence, and wide-ranging job experience. Effective executive leaders employ analytical skills to decide how to maximize the productivity of employees and get the maximum corporate value from company resources. Successful executive leaders show leadership behaviours such as compassion, being open to feedback and new ideas, adaptation to change, readiness to collaborate with others and the ability to listen effectively to their subordinates.

Executive leaders typically have a combination of hard skill and soft skills (e.g., common sense, a communication skills, organizational skills, interpersonal skills, etc.) which they use to motivate employees and leverage employee talents to improve corporate processes. In addition, effective executive leaders play a critical role in creating and epitomizing the corporate culture of the organization.

Based on the above, executive leadership is defined as:

“That set of activities directed toward the development and management of the organization as a whole, including all of its subcomponents, to reflect long-range policies and purposes that have emerged from the senior leader’s interactions within the organization and his or her interpretations of the organization’s external environment” (Zaccaro, 2001, p.13).