Paper ID
1927
Paper Type
full
Description
Digital transformation poses one of the largest threats to incumbent organizations if not managed by skilled and competent leadership. This exploratory study, therefore, defines adequate leadership for successful digital transformation by assessing the attributes that describe the prototypical Digital Leader. Based on sophisticated numerical ranking and conceptual clustering methods applied to statements made by employees and leaders of organizations with a high degree of digitalization, ‘empathic’ emerged as the highest ranked Digital Leader attribute, followed by traits describing leaders as ‘innovative’, ‘open’ and ‘agile’. Furthermore, we suggest guidelines for identifying Digital Leaders, making use of Digital Leader profiles and lessons learned from observations made by applying Digital Leadership.
Recommended Citation
Pabst von Ohain, Benjamin, "Leader Attributes for Successful Digital Transformation" (2019). ICIS 2019 Proceedings. 5.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2019/practice_is_research/practice_is_research/5
Leader Attributes for Successful Digital Transformation
Digital transformation poses one of the largest threats to incumbent organizations if not managed by skilled and competent leadership. This exploratory study, therefore, defines adequate leadership for successful digital transformation by assessing the attributes that describe the prototypical Digital Leader. Based on sophisticated numerical ranking and conceptual clustering methods applied to statements made by employees and leaders of organizations with a high degree of digitalization, ‘empathic’ emerged as the highest ranked Digital Leader attribute, followed by traits describing leaders as ‘innovative’, ‘open’ and ‘agile’. Furthermore, we suggest guidelines for identifying Digital Leaders, making use of Digital Leader profiles and lessons learned from observations made by applying Digital Leadership.