Who is a digital leader and how you can be one.

Average reading time 5 minutes

The word “digital” has been the biggest buzzword in recent decades. In this digital decade innovations such as AI, automation and digital transformation is fast emerging. If you have ever thought of how you can utilise these emerging technologies to better reach your business goals, then you a digital leader!

Simply put, a digital leader is someone who values communication, creative problem-solving skills, and actively uses new technologies to solve business problems. How then can you be an effective digital leader?

Focus on improving employee engagement

Imagine, an employee who reports to work every day and completes his assigned task. You may think he is actively engaged at work, but this might not be the case for most employees. Only a mere 15% of employees were highly engaged and positive about their work and workplace. It is clear that there is a significant gap in employee actions and their level of engagement at work. To remove this gap, as a leader you can improve employees’ level of engagement at work. Start by involving your employees in the work they do by asking them to challenge the current way of doing business. Bring in your employees’ active participation in every business decision possible and give them a sense of ownership and belonging to the company.

Make data-driven decisions

Humans are emotional beings but don’t let your emotions get the better of you when making an important business decision. Google reports that organisations that use data for decision making are 3X more likely to report significant improvement in their decision-making process. Start small by incorporating data-driven decision making in simple business decisions. Posting an important corporate update on your social media site? Don’t let convenience dictate the time you post the update but instead utilise analytics to determine the best time to post on your social media page. Once bringing in data for decision making seems natural, slowly start to bring in more data tools in every step of your business decision-making framework.

Be digitally savvy

It is no surprise that the pathway to be a digital leader is indeed being digitally savvy or at least learning to be one. If you were not born in the digital age, chances are that digital advancements are not natural for you to use. Start picking up digital skills by toying and experimenting with different technological advancements. Not sure how AI can better predict your sales projection? Trial and error various ways to configure the technology and start to understand how technology can be utilized to improve your business processes.

Develop EQ

This factor may be of a surprise to many, but the World Economic Forum has coined EQ to be one of the top 10 skills needed for a leader to be successful in the digital age. Being digitally savvy can only bring you so far. The combination of EQ and digital skills brings about Digital Emotional Intelligence (DEQ), a key transformational skill that helps digital leaders to combine the capabilities of emerging technology with the ability to understand, empathize and negotiate with other people.

Leadership 4.0: The Rise of The Digital Leader is a 4-day training course held from 26-29th July 2021, centered around digital leadership which is designed to provide insights on how to navigate the complexities of the disruptive digital world. At the end of the course, delegates will be able to think, act and design differently and build a business model of flexibility for tomorrow not stability of yesterday.