A framework for managing change leadership in a digital transformation environment

Abstract

Digital business transformation is disrupting businesses in every industry by breaking down barriers between people, businesses and things, as by breaking these barriers, they can create new products and services, and find more efficient ways of doing business. Digital transformation involves the reshaping of the very context and structure of organisations - which has implications for leadership practice and theory regarding leaders' abilities, capabilities and how they implement this change. Organisations tend to consider successful managers for these initiatives; however, a successful management career is not the same as leading an effective group, team or organisation. This is because the personality characteristics, motives and behaviours that predict career success differ from those that predict leading an effective team or organisation. This implies that successful change leaders influence organisations by creating an environment for teams to be motivated and involved. The central challenge for change leaders is to improve success in the detection, assessment and exploitation of ICT-related innovation opportunities. The leadership skills required can be seen to comprise a set of competencies which an individual in the digital economy requires to initiate and guide innovation utilising ICT. A leader in such a setting must communicate effectively with the teams, and fully understand the tools for supporting decision optimisation. This requires not only profound, leading-edge ICT exploitation skills, but also mature business skills, as well as skills in communication and organisation. These ICT-mediated environments are now impacting the way we understand leadership, as early researchers have observed a co-evolution between technology and leadership - which they labelled eLeadership. Not only has technology impacted upon leadership, but leadership itself may be transformed, due to its impact with technology. This phenomenon has motivated this study to develop a framework for eLeadership capabilities required in digital transformation initiatives, with a holistic view of the organisation and its environment, where it can be viewed as a dynamic system in which eLeadership contributes to reaching the organisational goals.