March/April 2020

Leading Insight
Preparing Leaders for the Digital Age

The outlook for today’s leaders in the digital era doesn’t look bright. According to new research, only 12% of executives and managers believed that their company’s leaders have the right mindsets to lead them forward. Only 9% agreed that their business has the necessary leadership to thrive in the digital economy.

The New Leadership Playbook for the Digital Age, a report from MIT Sloan Management Review and professional services company Cognizant, resulted from surveys of more than 4,000 executives and managers from more than 120 countries, as well as interviews with dozens of C-level executives.

While 82% believed that leaders in the new economy will need to be digitally savvy, less than 10% of respondents strongly agreed that their organizations have leaders with the right skills to thrive.

The top four mindsets that respondents felt were most critical to success in a digital age:

• Producers: “customer-obsessed with a focus on analytics, digital savviness, execution, and outcome”;
• Investors: “dedicated to growth, but in a sustainable fashion. They care about the communities in which they operate and are intent on improving quality of life”;
• Connectors: have a “mastery of relationships, partnerships and networks,” which drives the effectiveness of an organization;
• Explorers: operate well in “ambiguous situations”—and will encourage failure and reverse mentoring to bring about change.

To continue changing a workplace in the digital economy into an “amazing community of leaders,” the report recommends four main steps:

• Articulate a powerful leadership narrative that states what you believe is important for leading in a digital economy. Be specific in laying out what kind of behaviors best reflect that narrative.
• Empower employees at all levels. Put your employees in a position to connect with you on a personal level without relying on titles and workplace hierarchies. “Make transparency and trust the cornerstone of your culture,” the authors write.
• Align your talent, leadership, and business strategies. Hire and promote people who display and embody the four mindsets and the traits that you have laid out for success. “This will be a key differentiator,” the report says, “in your ability to attract, engage, develop, and retain talent.”
• Don’t just embrace inclusion and diversity—demand it. Open yourself to seeing where you may be lacking diversity and unheard voices or opinions. As the report states, “the research is clear that diverse teams perform better.”