Mindsets Determine Actions

As an emerging area of interest and attention, digital leadership has shown a lot of unknowns and does not have a single definition that is widely accepted in both industry and academia. Following intellectual dialogue and reviewing literature on how digital leadership is defined and described, I see roughly two groups of thoughts exist. The first one treats “leadership” as the fundamental and defining core of digital leadership and see “digital,” like those traditional leadership styles, as another skillset that complements what we know about leadership and helps organization grow in the era of the 4IR. The second group of thoughts emphasizes technology evolution as a powerful driving force that has the potential to completely transform how we lead an organization in the future. They look at digital leadership as a completely new leadership concept that is required for today’s organizations to succeed. They make references to and comparison with traditional leadership styles for the purpose of understanding the different aspects of digital leadership.

For me, both groups of thoughts have their own merits that will meaningfully contribute to our understanding of what digital leadership is and how we can benefit from it when leading organizations in today’s world. What I want to draw your attention to is how they approach the question of defining digital leadership. The way they approach the question reflects their mindsets that determine how they deal with technology evolution in their respective organizations. Mindsets determine actions.