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Strategic leadership plays a crucial role in organizations operating in dynamic business environment. This paper examines the wide-ranging characteristics for an individual to be an effective strategic leader with evidence from a comprehensive secondary literature review. Data is obtained from three major databases i-e google scholar, SSCI and Scopus. Secondary research results indicate that being a visionary, having a strategic and creative mindset along with the knowledge to develop and maintain the right social capital and the inclination to have moral integrity are some of the indispensable elements of effective strategic leaders. Consequently, leader succession trainings and development models must inculcate these competencies and characteristics into their top talents to enhance the organization's future performance. Nevertheless, strategic leadership encompassing top management and board of directors‟ success factor in terms of a team‟s abilities, knowledge and skills is still a largely untapped domain.