With digital leadership to sustainable digitalisation

The pandemic has triggered a surge in digitization in companies in almost all industries and organizations of all sizes. Many activities have shifted to the virtual space. This is confirmed by a survey conducted by the University of Zurich. According to the survey, this forced digitalization push is greatest for work in the home office. The share of activities done from home rose from just under 20 percent before the pandemic to more than 60 percent. But employees will still want to work from home around two days a week in the future. However, for the digital way of working to function optimally in the long term and for New Work to establish itself sustainably, more is needed than the right tools. It needs digital leadership.

The background to this is that digitalisation and the automation that builds on it are revolutionising the way we work. They are changing many tasks. Instead of manual administrative activities such as searching, collating and forwarding documents and typing information, what is needed now is control and monitoring. This includes setting up digital business processes. Collaboration is also different. Instead of face-to-face meetings and phone calls, communication via cloud-based project management and meeting tools is on the agenda. In short: New Work requires a different organisation, additional competences and skills. This is accompanied by changed demands on leadership.

What is Digital Leadership?

Digital leadership is a leadership approach that focuses on leading teams, organisations and companies in times of digitalisation and digital transformation. In this context, terms such as Leadership 4.0, Leadership 4.0 and Management 4.0 have emerged in reference to the fourth industrial revolution, which refers to the intelligent networking of machines and processes in industry with the help of information and communication technology. Although these buzzwords do have subtle differences, leadership in the digital age is the linchpin.

Digital Leadership, for example, deals with challenges for modern leaders and which future leadership skills are needed for this. Dr Michael Gross, consultant, speaker, trainer and former Olympic swimming champion, for example, has described five roles of the digital leader. He is a provider of responsibility. This means that he divides leadership and responsibility among specialised teams. As an evangelist, he provides impulses and as a bridge builder, he turns colleagues and employees into allies. At the same time, he is a navigator and expert who actively shares his knowledge. In order to be able to fulfil such tasks, Sven Ruoss, head of the CAS Digital Leadership HWZ programme, presented seven key skills. The most important competence of leaders is trust in the will to perform and the commitment of employees. Another front-runner: communication skills. The expert understands this to mean appreciative communication and interaction on all channels. Furthermore, it is important to learn something new every day. In a time when machines and algorithms take over repetitive tasks, people generally have to use their creativity to critically question the existing and invent new business models. In order to be able to react quickly to changes, leaders and employees should be agile and flexible. Another crucial factor for success is to build up network structures that enable cross-functional cooperation beyond traditional departmental thinking. Media competence helps to cope with the flood of information. In addition, numerous other skills can be identified. But it is not primarily a question of a complete list.

Establish digital leadership step by step

It is essential to understand the necessity of digital leadership for a sustainable digital transformation, to understand its character. This is the basic prerequisite for growing step by step. The chances for this are good. "All the roles of digital leaders can develop in existing hierarchies of a company and thereby further develop these hierarchies, especially the informal structures," wrote Dr Michael Gross.

A good way is to offer further training in digital leadership. There is a wide range of courses available for different levels of maturity and for the requirements of companies and organisations. The University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland, for example, teaches "Digital Leadership Kompakt". The Zurich University of Applied Sciences offers a "Digital Leader" course, the University of St. Gallen the "CAS Digital Leadership and Transformation" programme and the Swiss Distance Learning University a "CAS Digital Leadership" course. In addition, there are well-researched occupational and health psychology measures that can strengthen employees and managers to deal with fast-moving, dynamic changes in the world of work 4.0. After all, according to the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, 60 percent of employees see themselves exposed to increased pressure to perform as a result of the digital transformation. "In particular, respondents at the top management level state that they are least successful in separating work and leisure," the researchers say.

The chances of realising digital leadership are also good in small and medium-sized enterprises, which represent the majority of the economy in Switzerland. The New Work Barometer 2021 of the SRH Berlin University of Applied Sciences attests to the fact that SMEs are practising new work measures more extensively and are also venturing into power structures. Now it's time to take advantage of the opportunities.