On the precipice of change, executives find themselves in a situation much like standing on the edge of a cargo plane with fellow paratroopers looking at a gaping hole, 1,000 feet above ground level. This is what a digital transformation journey can seem like, and it takes guts and a sense of inevitability to take the leap.
According to a 2019 Gartner Report, “Transforming Enterprise Leadership for Digital,” almost 60% of Fortune 500 CEOs believe that business model change is likely by 2020, and 90% of the same test group say that “Digital” is a top priority. With digital initiatives comes an evolution of the roles people play in organizations. The lines become blurrier, decentralization occurs, and collaboration and a shared vision increases. Successfully leading the charge requires CEOs to step into their own evolution, embracing a new ideology and welcoming a more risky, creative atmosphere into their organization.
74% of surveyed CEOs are in early execution of planning stages of digital business transformation efforts — impacting technology, such as the cloud, big data and analytics, omnichannel, AI and IoT on the surface; and accompanied by a deeper dive into competencies, culture and mindsets, an organizational business model, ways of working, corporate clock speed and governance, leadership and change management, IT’s operating model, customer experience, incentives and prioritization and funding model, compliance and risk management.
With so much at stake and nowhere to go but forward, it is time to embrace the digital business model.
The Future is Here
A digital business model requires a different pace and structure within an organization. The Digital CEO can support this transition by rising to challenges around developing a shared ambition and vision, making faster and better decisions, re-orientating IT teams to partner closely on digital business outcomes, making digital part of behavior-driving metrics and goals, and overcoming aversion to risk or failure. Operating with “digital dexterity,” a Digital CEO nimbly navigates the ambition and ability to work digitally.
As described in Scaling Leadership by Robert Anderson and William Adams, the new age of leadership requires that CEO-individuals retire their socialized, dependent and reactive selves and take an aspiring step towards a more “turbocharged” self that becomes more self-authorized, independent and creative.
Outlined in Scaling Leadership, with support from the Gartner Report, here are five success-oriented traits for the Digital CEO:
- Upgrade to creative authenticity – With so much change afoot, the Digital CEO can inspire people to take the lead and have a stake in the process, bringing together the team in support of a shared vision. An astute leader knows when to take charge at the front and when to step back and function, promoting a culture that is open, honest, authentic, optimistic, generative and innovative.
- Nurture deep relationships – A Digital CEO exemplifies love. “The stronger the relationships between leaders and the people they lead, the greater will be the opportunity to scale leadership within the organization. Strong relationships unlock the potential of human imagination and enable team members to persevere together,” wrote Anderson and Adams.
- Leverage feedback for systems awareness – With an open mindset, the Digital CEO can generate a feedback loop that provides integral information to help improve how the organization fares in the future, working iteratively to change outcomes. Creative and integral leader profile by Anderson and Adams, emphasizes leadership’s reliance on valued and respected feedback.
- Encourage purposeful achievement – Higher purposes is an enlightenment conversation for organizations as well as personal development. By inspiring teams to reach higher and surpass expectations, people and systems are prompted to evolve.
- Close gaps between goals and reality – Generative tension closes the gaps between an organization’s reality and employee expectations. A Digital CEO works to bring the gap together and direct scaling as needed in a chief development officer-role.
Gartner’s Report encourages examination of the leadership team’s posture towards digital dexterity. The digitally savvy CEO will welcome and encourage cross-functional collaboration, co-create and facilitate decision-making, and use test-and-learn-approach to risk, adversity, and failure.
Digital CEOs hold the unique opportunity to lead and cultivate innovation in businesses and institutions by upgrading their own awareness and contributions. Teams will benefit from the new approach as the ripcord is pulled and a new horizon comes into view.
