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What you need to do to lead in a digital worldThe exponential changes that drive digital transformation challenge the established models of leadership. We can no longer put off developing our leaders and organisations for a digital future. If you are too slow on the uptake, it could threaten the employability of your employees and the survival of your organisation. Deloitte, in their Global Human Capital trends 2017 white paper, call out the leadership capabilities required to succeed in a digital world. It covers the levels of thinking differently, behaving differently and reacting differently.In thinking differently, the requirement for systems thinking is clear. Leaders need to be able to think and make decisions in a virtual world, in an ever more complex way, more divergently and without all the information at hand.Behaviourally, leaders have to manage their egos in a world where power and influence will constantly shift, success will only be achieved through deep collaboration, valuing the input of all stakeholders and being willing to experiment, fail and learn.Finally, emotionally individuals will need resilience and confidence to cope with increasing ambiguity and change and be willing to take the lead in an uncertain environment.David White breaks it down to another level. He calls out: Identity and visibilityCreativity and expressionCollaborationSelf reflectionCritical questioningDialogue and discoursePromoting workDesigning and makingDigital and media literacyOrganisation, curation and communicationRussell Reynolds studied successful senior leaders that are productive digital disruptors and identified the following:Productive disruptors are 56 percent more likely to cut through bureaucracy than the broader population of senior leaders. They are successful at making change, in part, because they have little appetite for antiquated processes that stand in the way of change.?Productive disruptors score 52 percent higher?in thinking “outside the box.” Even those with a history at their organisation are able to get past the precedent and groupthink that commonly cloud strategic decisions. They are creative and contrarian?thinkers who produce non-obvious solutions to the challenges of digital disruption.Productive disruptors score 49 percent higher in their willingness to challenge traditional approaches.?They are successful at persuading their C-suite colleagues to break with precedent as business conditions change. They have no patience for “the way we’ve always done things here.”According to BCG, the CEO behaviour is even more critical because of the magnitude of change, the degree of disruption, and the power of inertia. Digital transformation requires new ways of working, not just new technology. The scarcest resource at many companies is not necessarily technological know-how but leadership. Leaders need the ability to sift through an avalanche of digital initiatives, manage accelerating innovation cycles, and reshape the organisation around new approaches such as agile. How able is your CEO to do this? How much does the Board understand and support this?In summary, Egon Zehnder calls this new kind of leader a Digital Value Creator. It is someone who can build next level leadership, master complexity, orchestrate creativity, leverage emotional commitment and connect with society.How many of these values, behaviours and skills are focused on, measured and developed in your organisation as you step into the future? How do you go about developing these personally and organisationally? How strong is the overall ICT proficiency of every single employee in your organisation? Are you even driving your learning digitally?Deloitte suggests identifying leaders early for their agility, creativity, ability to lead and connect people and teams, thinking patterns and advanced systems thinking. They need to be given early responsibility to test and develop these skills and learn how to focus on culture, context, risk taking and perspective taking. The definition of leadership should be broad and include all levels.Senior leaders should be measured on their ability to cut through bureaucracy to enable change, their ability to create counter-intuitive insights and their courage in challenging the norm. Unfortunately, these leaders are often seen as the problem instead of being embraced and supported to drive the necessary change in the organisation.In terms of the CEO, the rule of thumb is: The more disruptive the initiative, the more the CEO will need to free the organization from the shackles of legacy and habit and introduce agile ways of working into their organisation. Leaders in an agile organisation must set the context and purpose, ensure alignment, and enable autonomy. Finding the balance between alignment and autonomy is the ultimate test of leadership during a digital transformation. ................
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