Trend barometer

Complexity Management: Complexity is Giving Managers a Headache

The IFIDZ Leadership Trend Barometer found: Managers consider increasing networking and complexity to be the biggest challenge in the digital age.

From the perspective of managers, what are the biggest challenges in the digital age? This is what the Institute for Leadership Culture in the Digital Age (IFIDZ) in Frankfurt am Main wanted to know. Therefore, it launched an online survey called "Leadership Trend Barometer" for managers. In this survey, the managers who participated anonymously could select a maximum of three answers from a total of eleven provided options. A total of 160 managers participated in the online survey.

Complexity Management is the Biggest Challenge

The survey revealed: Of the participants surveyed, most consider "increasing networking/complexity" to be the biggest challenge (43 percent). In second place is "the necessary involvement of employees/the 'conveyance of purpose' to the employees" (42 percent). According to statements by Barbara Liebermeister, the head of IFIDZ, this is obvious, "because when the action and market environment becomes more complex, it also becomes more difficult to convey to employees why certain things are meaningful and goal-oriented."

In third place among the biggest challenges is "the growing need for change/innovation" (38 percent), followed by the changed communication behavior (32 percent). However, only 23 percent of managers consider – contrary to what is often suggested by the media – the challenges arising from the "changed needs of young employees ('digital natives')" to be significant.

Team and Project Work is Established Practice; Complexity Management is Not

According to Liebermeister, this is probably also due to the fact that many middle managers today are already "digital natives" themselves – that is, 35- or 40-year-olds who grew up with new information and communication technology. The same applies to "the increasing teamwork and project work." It is a well-established and common practice in most companies today that shapes everyday work. Therefore, it hardly poses greater challenges for managers anymore (12 percent).

The IFIDZ will conduct an anonymous online survey of managers three times a year under the label "Leadership Trend Barometer" in the future. The next online survey will start in mid-April. Managers who wish to participate in the survey can do so on the IFIDZ website (ifidz.de). There, they will find a button on the homepage that leads them to the survey. If participants voluntarily provide their email address in the designated field, they will automatically receive the results of the survey after it concludes.