For businesses to thrive in today’s uncertain and ever-changing business environment, they must understand the role and impact of technology on leadership and organizations. As technology becomes increasingly integrated into the way organizations operate, leaders need to be aware of how this can support their goals and strategies.
Existing hierarchies and structures that have traditionally been successful are now being challenged by a combination of “scientific management” and the growing powers of automation, standardization, and commoditization. This has led to unprecedented economic expansion, but the limitations of this model are increasingly evident and new ways of working must be explored and implemented. Leaders must find a way to simultaneously adapt and sustain their businesses during this transition.
The old mechanistic view sees organizations as machines in which employees are parts, management are the operators, and executives are the designers and/or captains. The new paradigm views organizations as living systems, with employees, managers and executives playing a more collaborative role in organizing and executing work. This collaborative approach requires a different leadership style and poses new challenges for leaders, such as:
- Developing a servant leadership mindset: to support the agility needed in modern organizations, leaders must adopt a “servant leader” mindset. They must model the right behaviours to inspire people and promote a culture of openness, sharing and collaboration. They must possess a variety of interpersonal skills, such as empathy, negotiation, resilience, critical thinking, and the ability to navigate uncertainty and ambiguity. Most importantly, they must measure their success by their ability to help others succeed and grow.
- Building psychological safety: servant leaders must recognize the importance of psychological safety to help teams perform, learn, contribute, and creatively challenge the status quo. They must create a culture of trust and openness and model the necessary behaviours.
- Accepting uncertainty: transformational leaders must be comfortable with and even accept the uncertainty of the nonlinear and unpredictable effects of the current turbulence and speed of change. Instead of trying to control everything, they should focus on creating the right conditions and trusting the people they work with to make great things happen.
- Thinking in ecosystems, not closed systems: transformational leaders must understand that organizations are complex adaptive ecosystems. In such systems, everything is connected and interdependent: employees, customers, suppliers, partners, competitors, etc., all act both within and outside defined organizational boundaries. Leaders must understand that ecosystems do not operate in hierarchical, isolated structures and cannot be managed by setting discrete goals and managing results as separate, isolated entities.
- Digital Literacy: Leaders must possess digital literacy and stay informed about the rapidly evolving digital landscape. They must use ongoing research, independent advisors, and regular briefings to stay informed about new and disruptive technologies that may threaten the future of their organization, offer new opportunities, or both.
- Comprehensive knowledge of the business: transformational leaders must have a deep understanding of their entire company, talent and operations, their industry, their customers and markets.
- Focus on value: transformational leaders must focus on creating real value for their customers and the ecosystem, not just creating and selling products and services. They must look for ways to solve real stakeholder problems and move from a purely transactional model to a much more relational approach. They should aim for a partnership model in which all stakeholders benefit.