Perceptions of top managers related to strategic leadership: A research on private ports in Turkey

Ports are recently in an international position in addition to national identities they have. Continuously developing world trade capacity gives an international dimension to ports. When it is considered that the majority of the world trade with 90% has been provided by maritime transportation, the strategic importance of ports will show up. The cargo traffic of this size, rapid changes in global trade and technology bring in an increase in competition between ports and besides more commercial approach in port operations. Increasing competitive environment and the international position of ports have caused uncertainty and consequently sectoral risks. How to manage a port becomes a great importance in this uncertain and competitive environment. At this point, it is observed that strategic leadership becomes prominent to be an important competitive advantage factor for organizations so as it is so explicit that the need to be managed by managers who have features of strategic leaders in terms of both environment and risk factors ports faced cannot be ignored. This study aims to find out strategic leadership qualifications of top managers in Turkish private ports and to analyze their perceptions on the concept of strategic leadership by taking into consideration the literature in local and global port industry and strategic leadership. The literature review was performed for determining research method and variables of this study. A conceptual model was developed as a result of the information get from this preliminary work and it was decided to utilize the Delphi technique as a research method. Data was obtained from the sample group of the research involving experts in the field via the three round Delphi survey. Findings of the study include evaluations on perceptions of top managers related to strategic leadership in ports.