The digital leader: what one needs to master today’s organisational challenges

Abstract

Executives are increasingly facing various challenges associated with digitalisation, especially the simultaneous handling of many topics, loads of information flushing in via digital channels, rapid changes, and finding the right balance between the old and the new. Building on a growing body of research suggesting and systematising leadership skills, we conduct an online-survey with executives to investigate the connection between selected skills and the ability to cope with specific challenges. We find that a strong ability to think and act entrepreneurially, (self-)organisation and IT skills, a profound ability to motivate others, and a high degree of flexibility, commitment, and creativity are positively linked to the ability to cope with several digitalisation-related challenges. Surprisingly, being a strong team player does not seem to be necessarily advantageous. Moreover, many executives desire more calmness, which suggests that being able to decelerate is important in the digital age.

Examining Teachers’ Perspectives on School Principals’ Digital Leadership Roles and Technology Capabilities during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Cuevas López and del Arco Bravo [62] emphasized that the use of technology in leadership practices should be taken into account so as to ensure the efficiency and development of modern educational organizations. In this context, the necessity for school administrators to include new technological developments in their institutions [63] clearly emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in a study conducted by Aksal [22], it was stated that school principals were aware of digital leadership, but that they needed specific educational and technological infrastructure for the usage and dissemination of emerging technologies in education and for the future development of their schools.…”

Leadership’s long arm: The positive influence of digital leadership on managing technology-driven change over a strengthened service innovation capacity

“…E-leadership therefore happens in a context in which work is mediated by information technology, especially in terms of communication and the collection and distribution of information which alters power relationships between leaders and followers due to the rising transparency and interconnectedness, and which requires new leadership behaviours to sustain trustful relationships ( Avolio and Kahai, 2003 ). In contrary, the definition of DL is embedded into the age of ubiquitous computing ( Schwarzmüller et al, 2018 ; Kane et al, 2019 ; Petry, 2019 ; Klus and Müller, 2021 ) implicating that digital technologies are pervasive and merge the physical with the digital world which leads to blurring boundaries such as between nations, organisations, customers, and partners. This entanglement perspective goes beyond the emergent force view of technology and describes that technology is intrinsic to everyday social interactions ( Cascio and Montealegre, 2016 ).…”

“… Singh and Hess, 2020 ), there is still limited research in terms of studies for strategic change focusing on how organisations can be digitally transformed ( Warner and Wäger, 2019 ). In this vein, to cover the leadership dimension of DT, literature has among others coined the term of digital leadership (DL; Fisk, 2002 ; Westerman and McAfee, 2012 ; El Sawy et al, 2016 ; Buvat et al, 2018 ; Kane et al, 2019 ; Klus and Müller, 2021 ; Benitez et al, 2022 ). According to Eberl and Drews (2021) , DL can be defined as “a complex construct aiming for a customer-centered, digitally enabled, leading-edge business model by (1) transforming the role, skills, and style of the digital leader, (2) realizing a digital organization, including governance, vision, values, structure, culture, and decision processes, and (3) adjusting people management, virtual teams, knowledge, and communication and collaboration on the individual level.” This definition demonstrates that, instead of optimisations of the present organisational state (management perspective; Kotter, 2000 ), DL aims for fundamental changes of business conditions on multiple levels to achieve sustainable competitiveness ( Kane et al, 2015 ; El Sawy et al, 2016 ).…”

“…DL further differentiates from the traditional leadership perspective in the objective of developing a digital strategy and a culture that enables an organisation to digitally transform in a business ecosystem ( Kane et al, 2015 ; El Sawy et al, 2016 ). For digital leaders, this requires a blending of traditional and new leadership capabilities such as a transformative vision and forward-looking perspective, digital literacy, and adaptability ( Schwarzmüller et al, 2018 ; Kane et al, 2019 ; Petry, 2019 ; Klus and Müller, 2021 ). Although DL owns a strong practical relevance, it is weakly conceptualised in the current academic discourse indicated in aspects such as the definitional fuzziness of the term, e.g., in terms of a missing differentiation between e-leadership and DL ( Eberl and Drews, 2021 ).…”

Digital Leadership and Employee Creativity: The Role of Employee Job Crafting and Person-Organization Fit

“…In pace with the development of technologies in companies, such as mobile Internet, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, big data, the Internet of things, and blockchain, executives are increasingly facing various challenges associated with digitalization. Particular challenges are the simultaneous handling of many topics, considerable information flushing via digital channels, rapid changes, and finding the optimal balance between the old and the new ( Temelkova, 2018 ; Klus and Müller, 2021 ). For leaders, digital technologies mean new forms of communicating and organizing ( El Sawy et al, 2016 ), but classic leadership styles do not sufficiently address the opportunities and challenges arising from digitalization ( Klein, 2020 ).…”