Strategic Leadership and The Work Environment: An Empirical Investigation of The Role of Leadership in Enhancing Knowledge Management Practices of Selected Private Higher Education Institutions in Botswana

This paper sought to identify gaps in the role of strategic leadership of selected private higher education institutions (PHE) in Botswana in facilitating knowledge management (KM) practices through creating a conducive work environment. PHE institutions operate in a highly regulated, highly uncertain, dynamic, and complex environment, making the need for an organisational leadership that creates a work environment that promotes effective generation, sharing, application, and retention of knowledge as an organisational asset critical. A number of key literary sources were consulted in which the theoretical underpinnings of the paper were firmly grounded. The concurrent mixed methods research design and methodological triangulation(in data collection) were adopted bringing together different, but complimentary, data forms thus enabling the augmentation of quantitative and qualitative data to ensure reliability of findings. The study revealed ineffectiveness of leadership, through inappropriate leadership styles, as a hindrance to effective KM practices by creating a work environment that does not enable employees to effectively create, distribute, share and use knowledge to enhance organisational performance and viability of the business model. Family management was found to be critical in inhibiting KM practices.