Contemporary Leadership: Technology Skills

This short article represents the fourth in a series of posts discussing the evolution of the leadership characteristics required for success in today's business environment. It is important to note that the views expressed in these articles are my own and do not necessarily represent those of any groups or organizations with which I am associated.

In the previous two articles within this series, I outlined a handful of professional skills and personal skills that I believe are two of the three building blocks to a leader's pursuit of sustainable success.

This article will now shift the focus to the third critical leg of the stool: technology skills. Historically, senior leaders would at best be familiar with the monolithic brands (i.e. IBM, SAP, etc.) that primarily served as the foundation for their back office operation. Beyond that, a deeper understanding of technology was left to those in the organization who focused on this space as a natural extension of their primary role.

However, as I positioned in a previous series of articles, today's emerging technologies are far more prevalent in terms of everyday utilization across an organization and considerably more impactful on a company's overall strategy. In turn, a leader's need to both understand and be able to prioritize the investments made in these technologies has become an essential skill set.

This is not to suggest that every leader now needs to understand how to code, architect a mobile app or train a large language model. Rather, a leader must be familiar enough with the technologies at a deep enough level to appreciate their possibilities in terms of how they may be leveraged to create strategic or operational advantages for their organization.

In order to gain a relevant level of appreciation, I would propose that there are three major skills related to technology aptitude that today's leader must develop:

1. Technology Awareness - the leader's ability to absorb the appropriate amount of detail on the contemporary technologies that can substantively impact the leader's organization.
2. Technology Objectivity - the leader's ability to remain neutral in the selection of rapidly evolving technologies that can best serve the objectives of the organization.
3. Technology Application - the leader's ability to translate technology capabilities into practical uses that are specific to the organization's unique needs.

Unlike the more familiar professional and personal skills that have been part of the leadership development equation for some time, the need for these technology skills is a relatively new phenomenon and is directly correlated with the recent explosion of technologies capable of so much more than simply generating basic efficiencies. Concepts like Generative AI have the ability to create a distinct competitive advantage for the organization willing to consider applications more strategic than to simply have it serve as a better search engine.

The time has come for us to start viewing the need for these technology skills as critical components of a contemporary leader's skills portfolio. In my opinion, leaders that elect to delegate these capabilities to someone else within the organization risk being left behind in the conversations that shape the future of an organization moving forward.