5 Qualities of an Exceptional Digital Transformation leader

There are managers and there are leaders. Leaders stand out. Especially digital transformation leaders. They are a special breed.

They must have a deep understanding of business. An uncanny ability to spot ways to disrupt traditional ways of working to create value. They must tread where few have, find new ways of engaging with customers and partners. In today’s era, customer is king. Most organizations are designing their operations with the customer at the heart. It is imperative for the digital transformation leader to understand customers’ pain needs.

To address customer needs they develop deep understanding of emerging and current tech. They use tech to make change happen.

They deliver new ways of working and value.

They build belief. They address potential risks to business operations from emerging technologies.

To speed up change, they must spot and ride waves of change e.g., a pandemic or an organizational restructure.

They must build deep relationships with business. Influencing, advocating and collaborating to innovate and drive change. They must inspire their own teams to step out of comfort zone.

All this in a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous (VUCA) world.

Sounds tough, doesn’t it? It is but that makes it all the more fun.

Here’s a look at the top 5 qualities of a digital transformation leader –

1. Focus on delivering business results – Digital transformation leaders relentlessly focus on using technology to deliver business results. They know that in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous world, businesses must continually disrupt themselves. Technology plays the most vital role in this. They focus on “how” technology can improve business results. Acquiring new customers, creating a new revenue stream, or improving the profits.

Digital, AI, IOT and hyper automation technologies are making rapid advancements. Digital transformation leaders expect technology to change. So instead of focusing on specific technology, they focus on business outcomes. They use technology to drive that outcome.

“The aforementioned technologies are no longer just concepts or buzzwords, genuinely transformative leaders are now pushing the envelope far past adoption, but identifying what truly can be outsourced to “digital workers”. Their eyes should be set on finding processes that leverage technology end-to-end. In-turn this gives them and their constituents the time and resources to focus more critically on what should only be creative or strategic initiatives.”

Peter Steube , Head of Global Partners & Alliances, RoboCorp

In short, they believe in digital for the outcomes.

2. Inspirational - They see the long-term big picture and set the higher purpose for transformation. They build the value proposition story. The new way of doing things. They sell it to the leadership and to every member on the team. To build commitment. To build belief.

They share goals with the cross functional teams driving the transformation programs. They communicate clearly. They help people understand, collaborate and drive ownership to achieve results.

They communicate progress on outcomes frequently. Listening for ideas to improve. Tweaking and improving constantly.

They acknowledge that bumps are inevitable on the way. They back their teams and keep motivation high to get through tough situations.

They understand the potential of digital and the risk of not taking action in a timely fashion. They educate the executive team and inspire them to transform.

3. Resilience – Digital Transformation leaders expect resistance to change, both within the organization and outside it. They are resilient even in the face of overwhelming opposition to change. Digital technologies will disrupt organization structures and established ways of working. They consider themselves as catalysts for newer and easier ways of working. The know that path to newer ways of working is rocky and they are ready for it.

They find many ways to get ahead and prepare leadership for change. They use story boarding and simulations. They advocate for change explaining the risks of not acting. They build strong relationships and influence business leaders to be the innovators.

They also prepare their own teams to be resilient.

?“There will be many highs and lows on your journey, resilience will be vital. Digital leaders need to explain the technology, have patience with bringing colleagues up to speed, answer the same questions on many occasions to the widest range of stakeholders. Then when success happens, expectations rise rapidly and then the first major issue and the cycle happens all over again”

Andrew Shapcott , Company Director and Intelligent Automation and Product Leader

4. Continuous Learning – Business environments are fluid. Technology is constantly evolving. To keep up with the pace, everyone must learn. That learning can happen in many forms. Learning can happen from experimentation. Listening to experiences of industry peers who attempted similar transformation initiatives. Engaging with start-ups and emerging tech companies. Lessons from internal project implementations.

?“History and experiences often rhyme, but there is no alpha in simply repeating them. Digital transformation leaders recognize this and treat each opportunity uniquely, using their team’s experiences past and present as ‘pieces to the puzzle’ in pursuit of not just something new and innovative – but more so that is a precise strategic fit to the organization’s needs.”

Peter Steube , Head of Global Partners & Alliances, RoboCorp

Digital Transformation leaders use every opportunity to learn more. They build a curiosity driven learning culture. They invite leadership and business teams to join the learning sessions. They encourage their own teams to train and hone their own skills.

5. Celebrate others success - Digital transformation leaders know the importance of a digital mindset across the company. Driving a culture of innovation, experimentation, cross team collaboration and agility. So, they look out for, promote and celebrate others success. They want business teams to hear of great success stories of change. It matters little to them if their own team was part of the success story.

“There’s never any shame in a bit of corporate cheerleading. Good leaders take time to acknowledge the full suite of team members that helped them reach the organization’s goals. Great leaders do so in creative ways, with a personal touch, or private message that lets each member of their team know they appreciate and understand the day-to-day struggles that were a part of the success.”

Peter Steube , Head of Global Partners & Alliances, RoboCorp

“It’s often difficult to see what an amazing job you and your team have done when you are dealing with the day-to-day challenges, great leaders focus on successes, celebrating the achievements of the team, sharing external comparisons and truly supporting them to be the very best they can be.

Andrew Shapcott , Company Director and Intelligent Automation and Product Leader

In a volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous world, digital transformation leaders deliver business outcomes that are disruptive. They have to convince key stakeholders to champion change across the company. They need to inspire their own teams to deliver the big vision.

It’s a challenging role to say the least, and it takes mastery in many qualities to succeed. This makes the Digital transformation leaders a special breed!

Doing some of the above is not enough.

Doing all of the above and more, is now required if you are a leader who wants to succeed with digital.

Kieran ?is recognized as a digital transformation, intelligent automation, data analytics and social media strategy thought leader. Follow?Kieran . Join him monthly on?LinkedIn Live ?on the Third Thursday of each month. Or watch?Kieran 'sYouTube?channel ?or?website .

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