Abstract for: Bridging the Strategy Gap: Upskilling Executive Leadership for System Dynamics Application in Strategic Decision-Making

System Dynamics (SD) remains systematically excluded from executive decision-making despite proven efficacy in addressing complex, feedback-driven business challenges. CEOs continue relying on linear frameworks while SD expertise concentrates at operational levels, creating a persistent strategy gap that undermines organizational adaptability in volatile environments. This review synthesizes seminal SD literature, implementation case studies, and cognitive research to identify barriers between SD methodology and executive practice. Analysis spans structural disconnects, mental model limitations, institutional resistance, and methodological tensions to develop a comprehensive framework for executive upskilling. Seven critical barriers emerge: structural separation from strategic centers, cognitive misperceptions of feedback, low SD visibility in executive education, institutional planning inertia, purist-pragmatic methodological conflicts, linear mental model dominance, and specialist-level implementation isolation preventing C-suite penetration. Bridging the SD-executive gap requires graduated education combining systems thinking literacy with experiential simulation, participatory modeling protocols, and pragmatic hybrid approaches. Success demands organizational restructuring to embed SD within strategic processes rather than isolating it analytically, fundamentally reconceptualizing how leadership engages complexity. editing and references