Digital Leadership

We are living in a complex environment with dynamic and fundamental changes. A core aspect of these changes is the exponential development of new technologies. In addition to new competencies and the dynamic capability to adapt the competencies within a company, this dynamic and complex environment also leads to new leadership challenges. In an age of acceleration, managers have to juggle with different options and be agile. A pragmatic test, measure and learn approach is often more successful than very detailed analysis and long-term planning. In addition, single managers are often overstrained in such an environment. Therefore, leadership in the digital economy needs to be more decentralized and should use the collective competence and intelligence in the company. This article describes the characteristics of leadership in the digital economy as well as some adequate leadership tools. However, the article ends with a “but”, i.e. leaders should not push too hard and dump all traditional management tools. A successful leadership will typically require some kind of ambidexterity—efficient business execution and agile business adaption.