Leadership Characteristics in the Era of Digital Transformation

Abstract

Digital transformation provoked by Industry 4.0 should not be just seen as a technological issue, it causes also fundamental changes in processes and in organizations of companies. Notably a new understanding of leadership can be counted on to them. The so-called “digital leaders” are expected to act rapidly and flexible in networked and distributed organization structures on the one hand and on the other hand they have to manage the digital transformation of the organization. Since most of the companies are still in the beginning of their digital transformation, there is a lack of a common understanding and a standard model of digital leadership. Most of the existing research works are visionary and predict the requirements for digital leadership on anticipated technological, economical and organizational changes; only few of them report about changes in leadership based on implemented cases. The objective of this study is to sum up main characteristics of the leadership in the era of digital transformation by applying content analysis of literature review as the method.

Does The Digital Marketing Capability of Indonesian Banks Align with Digital Leadership and Technology Capabilities on Company Performance?

“…The total indicators are 43. Around 23 indicators measure digital leadership capability following the characteristic criteria [38]: digital business, social attitude, and general mindset. Then, 8 indicators of digital marketing capability cover marketing innovation and market sensing.…”

“…Second, it concerns a leader's social attitudes like motivating coach, role model, openness, social intelligence, diversity champion, democratic delegate, and employee-oriented and ethical leader. Third, it is general mindset characteristics, such as adaptable, agile, learning by errors, decisive, courageous, creative, self-aware, knowledge-oriented, and life-long learner [38].…”

“…Managers with comprehensive, actionable, and practical methodologies (E-MARKPLAN) can plan, enforce, and analyze e-marketing activities and company performance [40]. In this case, the ability of digital marketing cannot be separated from the influence of managerial policies or digital leadership capability, according to [38]. It is the basis for this research.…”

An Exploratory Literature Study into Digital Transformation and Leadership: Toward Future-Proof Middle Managers

“…It is a technology-driven, disruptive change process that ultimately enables business improvement [1,5,6]. A minority of organizations have already transformed, but most remain in early stages of digital transformation [5][6][7][8]. Such a transformation extends beyond mere technological change; it affects the organization and its processes as a whole [8,9].…”

Digital Transformation in Businesses and Its Drivers

“…Ayrıca çalışanların başarı ölçümü ve motivasyonu farklı şekillerde olacak ve işletmenin başarısının anahtar noktalarından birisini teşkil edecektir (Schwab, 2017). Bunun yanı sıra yeni organizasyon yapısını yönetecek liderlerin de farklı becerilere ve yönetim şekillerine ihtiyacı olacaktır (Klein, 2020). Dijital dönüşüm esnasında işletmeler yeni iş modelleri geliştirirken mevcut iş modellerinin bazılarını dönüştürmekte bazılarını da korumakta ve hatta iyileştirmektedir.…”