Executive Leadership within Digital Transformation: What Do The Leaders Of Tomorrow Need For Success?

Digital Transformation can often call for a new generation of leaders for a number of reasons. Stagnant organisations with no inspiration often struggle to successfully start let alone execute transformations because they aren’t equipped with the right leadership in place to lead the necessary change. Equally, capable organisations can still struggle through change even with the best technical leaders in place - it’s finding the perfect marriage of soft and technical skills which can be a tricky task. 

“Business transformation can be accelerated or derailed depending on how effective leaders are at transforming themselves. Executive technology leadership must anticipate digital opportunities and threats, use technology to adapt to changing conditions, and find leverage and value from disruption.” - Gartner

What qualities distinguish successful executives within Digital Transformation?

A love for change

The clue is in the name - but successful executives should already have a passion and desire for change to be successful digital transformation leaders. Having a natural curiosity for change and its benefits not only equips leaders with the personality traits that would make a great change leader, but it also inspires those going through the change (employees from middle management through to juniors) to be more receptive to change. 

If the leaders you hire can create a culture of change purely through their behaviours and attitudes, then you’ll find that your organisation adapts to change much quicker. Successful digital transformation can make businesses more agile and give them the ability to respond to market conditions. 

Innovation as an opportunity

“Digital innovation requires a culture of experimentation, creativity, and a willingness to take risks. It also requires a deep understanding of customer needs, a willingness to continuously test and iterate new ideas, and the ability to quickly pivot and adapt to changing market conditions.” - Webo

It’s important to note that digital innovation and digital transformation have distinct differences, however, innovation can support transformation due to the principles behind it. You can read the full breakdown of innovation vs transformation here. 

Leaders who can see innovation and transformation as the yin and yang of their thought process will not only equip themselves with incredible technical skill and knowledge, but they’ll be able to successfully communicate this across teams when transformations occur, thus increasing buy-in as well as sharing information.

Data-driven and technology focussed

And finally, data is king. We’ve highlighted the attitudes and behaviours that great change leaders should possess, but these are considered redundant if the change leader in question isn’t obsessed with data and technology at their core. 

Data does make the world go round - and within the four walls of your organisation, it can help to dictate the successes (or the failures) of a transformation. Having a leader who prioritises data (by collecting it) and understands it (translating it) will be your “Kryptonite” for a successful transformation. 

Especially if the digital transformation is particularly complex, you will be largely reliant on that transformation leader to distil the data at its most complex state into digestible chunks for the wider business. If someone is unable to do that it’ll create resistance and confusion, which can then create a snowball effect of failures.

“Digital technology tools either change the way people work, or change the products and services provided, whether through extending the life cycle of a product, adding digital features or providing goods as a service.

Consider the logic behind the product/service’s value proposition before implementing digital tools. Ask how the digital offering drives the business outcomes of customer centricity, greater market share and revenue enhancement. Use digital to boost your value proposition such as on-demand services, hyperpersonalization, dynamic pricing and real-time applications.” - Gartner