Why does a leader need to be digital-savvy especially in today’s times?

Who is a Savvy Leader

Simply put, “a leader who knows how to evolve and grow organizations keeping up with latest trends and technologies, has good inter-personal skills, retains the core culture and makes sound and well-intentioned decisions is a savvy leader.

Who is a Digitally Savvy Leader

A leader who can effectively and efficiently use the company’s digital assets and keep them updated to achieve organizational goals and at the same time ensure a smooth cultural and functional change can be said to be a Digitally Savvy Leader.

Why does a leader need to be digital-savvy especially in today’s times?

It is the need of the hour that leaders adopt and implement a digital transformation strategy at the earliest to ensure both sustenance and growth.

As per a report from MIT Sloan Management Review, 93% of employees across regions and industries think digital savviness is necessary to succeed. Successful digital transformation demands that leaders measurably transform themselves.

Additionally, 88% of workers surveyed reported that having leaders who are digitally savvy is critical to their company’s ability to achieve that purpose.

PLACE AN SURVEY FROM MIT

Efforts to lead digital transformation are unlikely to be effective without a leader’s own effective digital transformation — one that makes purpose, engagement, and fairness as important to workplace success as data-driven agility and productivity.

Data and data analytics can help a leader better judge not only the organization’s but also his own and the top management’s performance levels.

What can leaders do to be digitally savvy and competent?

1. Understand the impact: Foremost, understanding the impact of the digital technology on the business, the competencies that would be required for digital transformation, and an ability to foresee any disruptions in the future that need to be cushioned for.
2. Agile and adaptive: Leaders need to be more agile to frequent changes, be ready to adapt, and let go of some traditional business practices
3. Implementation: Getting new ideas and processes is one part and making sure required skills are developed for self and others across levels in the organization is very important.
4. Synchronize teams: Digital leaders need to ensure that the employees work together to solve problems. break existing silos and work as a team
5. Bird’s eye view: A digital leader should be able to have a birds-eye view and a holistic approach to the digital initiatives and how individual initiatives would work and fit in to deliver a complete package.

The above is just the tip of the iceberg. It is not about just going digital in bits and pieces. The entire process needs time, commitment to the purpose, a cultural shift, buy-in of all senior leadership, and a readiness to evolve. It has to trickle top down. Leaders need to relook at all their traditional processes right from recruitment, training, performance appraisals to hierarchy, work culture, and style of leadership.