7.1 Digital leadership

For organisations to successfully digitally transform they need to cultivate digital leadership skills. Digital leaders do not have to be experts in technology but need to have the knowledge to be able to make connections and have conversations that enable the organisation to embed a digital first culture.

Having a digital common language for leaders, is an approach that can simplify technology jargon, and help focus on the opportunities and risks to enable digital transformation. Deloitte Insights suggest:

By embracing a common language, organisations can begin to:

• Break through human behavioural and structural barriers. Everything in an organisation is interconnected. Leaders across functions can speak thematically about shared needs, avoid redundant investments, address emerging risks, and change processes at scale by simply communicating better.
• Plan beyond a single technology. Platforms, capabilities, and initiatives often involve multiple digital and physical technologies securely working together. As these technologies combine, they become greater than the sum of their parts to bring new capabilities and greater value.
• Evolve into the future. Today’s breakthrough technology is tomorrow’s legacy tech. A common language can enable leaders to think flexibly across a matrix of business and technology needs, without having the business strategy reliant on any single technology.
• Achieve a greater strategic business value through its capacity to change and ability to win. This approach helps organisations better align and execute against their business strategy to achieve their desired results of advantage and adaptability of the organisation, humans, and technology.

Source: Deloitte [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]

Activity 19: What does a digital leader look like?

Timing: 20 minutes

Watch the video in which Jacob Morgan shares the skills for digital leadership.

Download this video clip.Video player: hyb_1_2022_sept125_digital_leadership_technology_teenager.mp4

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Transcript

JACOB MORGAN

One of the important skills that leaders need to embrace is the skill of the technology teenager, and it pretty much is exactly what it sounds like. If you’ve ever had a problem with a piece of technology, whether it’s your Wi-Fi, your TV, your phone, your tablet, whatever it is, if you have kids chances are you know the feeling of you go to one of your kids, and say, hey, my Wi-Fi is down, you know what’s going on? Or, hey, can you fix my phone? Something’s wrong with it.

And, somehow, kids are just adept at figuring this stuff out. It’s not because they’re coders, it’s not because they’re developers, it’s not because they’ve built these things, but it’s because they’re not scared to tinker, to play around with, to experiment, to see how these things work.

And that’s really what the skill of the technology teenager is all about. It doesn’t matter if you’re 22, 42, 72, right? This is a skill that you need to embrace. Every company today is a technology company, which means every leader needs to be a technology-driven leader. I don’t mean that you need to know how to code, I’m not asking you to create your own blockchain or design your own form of artificial intelligence.

But from a high level as a leader, you need to understand what these different technologies are, you need to understand from a high level, how they work. And from a high level, you need to understand where the opportunities are, where are the potential threats, how might you take advantage of these technologies, how can they impact your business. That is really what the skill of the technology teenager is all about. Don’t run from technology, you have to embrace it.

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Then browse the following articles:

6 Characteristics of Digital Leadership

Leadership in a digital age

What do you think is required for digital leadership? You may wish to make notes in the free text box below.

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Digital leaders also need to plan a strategy to ensure that all employees have the digital capabilities, skills and behaviour necessary to harness digital tools and data, and have an awareness of the differing needs of their employees, students (for HEIs), and wider community.

BCG’s approach to digital transformation starts by assessing where an organisation is today, and where it wants to go. The image below shows the timescales and the outcomes that organisations may aim to achieve.

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Figure 27: The Boston Consulting Group digital transformation process

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Image shows the Boston Consulting Group digital transformation process. This is a two-step process, with the first part expected to occur over 4 to 12 weeks (to assess where you stand on various aspects), while the second stage is expected to last 6 to 24 months. For ‘Strategy and aspiration’ and ‘Prioritised outcomes’, implement the outcomes and deliver value in terms of outcomes, technology and humans – innovate, incubate, scale and industrialise. For ‘People/skills/culture gap assessment’, manage talent and build digital skills – talent platforms and digital skills builder. For ‘Operating and governance principles’, transform ways of working and operating model – agile ways of working, platform driven operating model. For ‘Technology and data assets’, drive technology transformation to generate rapid value – data and digital platform, specific technologies (e.g. IoT). Govern for value – program steering, control tower, OKRs and value measurement framework.

Figure 27: The Boston Consulting Group digital transformation process

Activity 21: Explore what digital transformation for HEIs might involve

Timing: 15 minutes

In this section we have looked at digital transformation in the wider context predominantly aimed for the corporate world, which is important when thinking of HEIs in the context of a business.

Reflect on the Hybrid Ways of Working: A Contextual Framework, the Digital Strategy for Wales and the activities earlier in the course exploring your internal and external environment. While HEIs need to operate as a business, they also have to consider the needs of their students, approach to pedagogy and delivering teaching and learning, which the pivot to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has led many institutions to offering a blended learning approach.

Then read the following articles:

Tackling digital transformation together

Consider the Three Ds When Talking about Digital Transformation

Educause suggest a Three Ds approach to digital transformation for HEIs – Digitisation, Digitalisation and Digital Transformation.

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Figure 28: The process to achieve and differences between digitisation, digitalisation, and digital transformation

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Image shows the process to achieve and differences between digitisation, digitalisation, and digital transformation. An arrow with five stages along it goes from bottom left to top right. Stages 1 (Digitise information) and 2 (Organise information) sit under Digitisation (changing from analog or physical to digital form). Stages 3 (Automate process) and 4 (streamline process) sit under Digitalisation (using digital technologies and information to transform individual institutional operations). Stage 5 (Transform the institution) sits under Digital transformation (A series of deep and coordinated culture, workforce, and technology shifts that enable new educational and operating modules and transform an institution’s operations, strategic directions, and value proposition)

Figure 28: The process to achieve and differences between digitisation, digitalisation, and digital transformation

Reflect on the Educause article, and consider what elements from the BCG and the Three D’s approaches can enable HEIs to digital transform and achieve the outcomes of the Digital Strategy for Wales and the A Prosperous Wales wellbeing goal – Skills for the Future successfully?

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