The new arrival: In March 2017, IFIDZ leader Barbara Liebermeister will publish her new book
“Digitalisation – why should you care?”
Countless factors are changing rapidly as a consequence of the digital age, and nowhere more so than in business. This has led to many leaders feeling unsettled, since our networked world has confronted them with a variety of completely new and unforeseen challenges and questions.
But although, admittedly, many things are changing, others are the same as they always habe been: people are still people, and leadership is still leadership.
Leadership must adapt, yes, but is more important these days than ever before: the more diffuse, unstable and strongly characterised by change the environment of a company becomes, the more employees long for stability and a sense of orientation.
The leaders of tomorrow must be empathic and socially competent in the first instance and technically competent in the second. Yes, digitisation is progressing – yet less is changing between executives and employees than you might imagine.
Or, to be more precise:
things are changing in a different way than you thought – because it’s not about algorithms, but people. Executives must have empathy and win people over; otherwise, they might as well not be there at all.