LD7090 Leadership in a Digital Age Assignment Sample 2023

Introduction

Leadership is the driving force of the organization to manage the organizational day to day working procedure along with managing the organizational culture to accommodate the employee in a healthy, safe and secure environment for co-working. In this report, the details of organizational functionary in the digital age with leadership role, responsibility and directive to transform the business process pro digital will be discussed elaborately.

Section 1: Self-analysis

1.1 Critically review leadership in light of digital leadership

Trait Theory

The different business organizations have different kinds of people in the top leadership branch, where the people reflect the separate and unique characteristics of nature. The top level management becomes of great importance in guiding their business to a specific destination of growth and successfully where the better understanding and identification of the different personality traits helps the business forms to have a concise idea. The trait theory of leadership creates a better scope of analysis and formulating a specific theory to help the organization grow in the long run. The organization’s success depends on a number of factors, where most of the identification is done when there different traits of a person involved closely with the affairs of the business may be predicted and be made more flexible to help the business grow.

There are several traits that are usually better theorized, which are self esteem, self confidence and the ability of rationalising and cognitive aptitude. Furthermore, the better refinement of such knowledge and the understanding of one’s own self is a greater achievement in the core understanding of trait theory. Trait theory has been one of the popular theories in establishing the raising of how the psychological understanding of a person has been beneficial to explain the different kinds of traits that the person may possess (Prentice et al., 2019).

Characteristics of Trait theory

The characteristics of trait theory are examined below:

1. Competency: The degree of competency determines in a leader of that person is suitable enough to perform and deliver a quality output with a given time framework
2. Adaptability: The capacities of the leader to adapt to the different changes that have been made in the work environment or in the organizational structure create a better impact on the leader, which is an important element to study. The leader needs to be more adaptable in respect of the dynamic environment of the organization, where the knowledge of the business usually helps the firm to have a better competitive advantage (Hao et al., 2019)
3. Motivations: The nature of the leader being encouraged and sharing such positive attitude with the remaining employees has a very distinctive impact on the organizational success, where the employees often are dependent on the guidance of the leader
4. Openness: The leader who is not much open and adaptable to the frequent changes att may occur within the organizational framework, often faces a hard time to resolve such challenges. The understanding of the openness of letting the different criticism and the different appraisals come and let be gone is one of the approaches taken by a leader

Trait theory vs digital leadership

Although, it may be suggested that the application of trait theory in reality has a longer effect on the leader employee relationship, trait theory proposes mostly the different kinds of natural traits which usually creates a successful leader. The examination and the understanding of trait theory has a longer effect than the creation of a leader through specialized theories. In the age of digitalization, the digital leadership theory believes in the conception of better leaders than the inborn leadership quality which needs to be present. On a specific note, it may be said that while trait theory limits and bounds the person to be chosen as a leader, the digital leadership theory has been more effective in identifying the skills that the person needs in the age of digital transformation. The trait theory has a conception about the passing of the top leadership position to different people only by means of a hierarchical balance, which is not approved by the digital leadership theory. Usually, the digital leadership theory focuses and approves of the identification of the soft skills present in the individual and creates a better opportunity for the unified collaboration. The digital transformation is required and inevitable in any kind of modern business organization, where the most required digital transformation has a positive impact on the psychological aspect of the different members of the organization (Zeike et al., 2019).

Contingency Theory

The Contingency Theory exerts on the fact that the different kinds of situations that may arise within the structure of an organization, are mostly under the variable of inspection, which firms the task of a leader. The different kinds of problems may arise in the values of the organization, where the framing of the turnover of the firm is mostly dependent on the effective style of the leader. The idea of different kinds of leadership theory is not so effective as is the theory of contingency theory, where the preference has been given on the power of adaptability and the nature of changing style of the management. The different kinds of personalities which usually revolve around the management responsible for bringing a change to the direction the business usually flows to, where the leadership style is quite dynamic and may be changed according to the factors that are external to the organization, is the point of Contingency Theory.

Characteristics of Contingency Theory

1. Dynamic: The Contingency Theory has the principle application where the needs of the situation is suited to the business criteria, aching a greater risk of systematic approach for the whole system of the management
2. Multidimensional: The Contingency Theory has a very wide approach owing to the nature of the theory applied in any kind of situations that may suit the business organization, where the understanding of the environment is crucial to create a specific style of management needed for better improvement. The Contingency Theory helps to identify the best steps that may be necessary to resolve a particular situation, and the analysis of both the external as well as of the internal contingencies is done after the proper application of contingency theory (Bals et al., 2018).

Contingency Theory vs digital leadership

The digital leadership style is usually concerned with the better adaptation of the different technological knowledge for the understanding of the firm and the analysis of the situation solving definitely. Contingency theory mostly focuses on the changing style of the management according to the change that has occurred in the environment, which is irrespective of the skills of digital medium that the leader may use. The Contingency theory focuses on the different variable elements of the organization, while the digital leadership focuses on the different digital media and use of several technological advantages that may facilitate the business organization to develop a better way. Digital leadership has the short term vision of management, although it may be said that the prime focus of digital leadership is to enhance the quality of the leadership according to the needs of the organization, which is different from Contingency Theory.

1.2 digital leadership strengths and areas for development in the leadership context

Table 1: Strengths and areas for development

(Source: Self-created)

Section 2: Leadership Capabilities and Behaviours

Multinational companies create wonderful opportunities for the employees to work anywhere and also make the working hours of the companies quite flexible and healthy. Moreover, teamwork is an extreme necessity for any kind of multinational enterprise which helps the employees to work together and solve problems together. Furthermore, these enterprises have made it possible for the employees to form teams by sitting from anywhere in the world which helps in running the company smoothly.

Example of the Geographically Dispersed Team:

Gateway Digital Company is a digital company which helps in the transformation of enterprises and organisations which helps the customers to understand about the market enterprise. Furthermore, the company has its headquarters both in the Netherlands and India and was established in the year 1997 and the focus of the company was on the Disruptive Innovation, Industry Oriented Technology Consulting, Software Platforms and IT services (Gateway Group. 2022).

Task: Innovative technological methods in business which is helpful and reliable by the Geographically Dispersed Teams

Challenges: The technological innovation is quite helpful for the geographically dispersed teams which help them in keeping coordination among each other. Moreover, the teams may face certain challenges such as miscommunication among each other which may lead to disruption in the work of the teams more easily. Furthermore, the knowledge sharing and innovative capabilities may help the geographically dispersed teams to analyse the role of capital investment and information technology (Mazzucchelli et al., 2021).

Managing Geographically Dispersed Teams (GDTs): Geographically Dispersed Teams (GDTs) are those who work at different locations around the globe and who communicate with one another through the use of social media and other online networking. Therefore, organisations are continuously relying on the GDTs which sometimes creates challenges in case of communication and also impact the performance of the team extremely (Eisenberg et al., 2019).

Influencing and Collaborating: The communication of the individuals with the respect to trust, adaptability, community, respect, trust and mutual responsibility which helps in working quite well in a team. Moreover, the organisations are more reliant on the dispersed teams for shared knowledge and collaborative effort towards the organisation which helps in the performance of the organization (Magni et al., 2018).

Efficiency and effective communication: The GDTs have to make sure that the communication among each other is quite efficient which may help the organisation to perform well and even make the leaders of the organisation to work effectively. Moreover, with the help of communication among the members, the organisation as well as the employees is able to understand the problems and the way to solve the problem.

Routine interactive feedback: The feedback from the team is quite essential as most of the employees are working from the remote areas which may become quite difficult for the employees to understand and even the organisation to understand the grievances of the employees where the feedback may be quite effective. Therefore, the feedback from all the employees helps the organisation to understand the perceptions and the knowledge of the employees towards the work and the pressure.

2.1 Discussing about the examples applied in practice

The work of the geographically dispersed teams helps in understanding about the situations of the organisation and the way the organisation is able to handle the kind of situations quite well. Moreover, with the help of effective communication through the use of Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, Google Duo and Video calls helps the employees in communicating about various kinds of problems and in solving the problems quite well. Therefore, through the use of video calls and other online message platforms it has become quite easier for the employees to communicate with one another quite easily and well without any kind of hindrances. Although, hindrances do occur sometimes as the internet connectivity does not remain the same everywhere this makes it quite difficult for the employees sometimes to even work. Therefore, the organisation makes sure that the employees are able to communicate with one another quite easily and smoothly although sometimes it too does not remain in the company’s hands.

The company may take feedback from the employees regarding the work and any other kinds of grievances which may have led the employees to any kind of problems. Furthermore, the employees have to make sure that the employees keep a common language keeping in mind about the different diverse backgrounds the people may be coming from which may be helpful for diverse talents and ideas yet communication may become a great barrier if a common language is not chosen. Therefore, as the common language is chosen which may help the employees even to perform well and even communicate with one another quite well outside work related issues too. Additionally, the employees too have to make sure that by setting up certain goals and objectives may help the employees to work well and even achieve the goals quite effectively.

2.2 Evaluating about the ethical, legal and social responsibilities of a digital leader

The organisation has to make sure that the organisation has to maintain certain ethical, social and legal responsibilities which may help the company to achieve success and even help the organisation with the help of the leaders to effectively implement it. Therefore, the ethical, social and legal responsibilities may be identifies as follows:

Ethical responsibility may be ensured by any organisation in order to sustain in the long run and also maintains certain ethical values such as trust, belief, fairness, confidentiality and accountability among the team members as well as between the leaders and the employees.

Social responsibility of the employees is the responsibility which the employees have towards the organization and as most of the employees are GDTs therefore, the collectively and coordination among the employees is highly essential. Thus, the company’s ethical values are to be taught to the employees so that it helps the employees to get accustomed about certain responsibilities of the employees towards the organisation.

Legal responsibility of the employees’ deals with the health, safety and security of the employees within and outside the organisation and which might help the employees to ask for any kind of legal legislation at the time of need.

Section 3: Business transformation to effectively lead the team in digital age

3.1 Business transformation in accordance to integration of digital technology in overall business process with Industry 4.0

Digital transformation of business processes is inevitable to maintain the competitiveness of the organization in this era of economic globalization which needs to remodel the business process with Industry 4.0 technological outfits to generalize the organizational function. The implementation and installation of technical tools such as Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), data analytics, machine learning, automation, Robotics, sensors are helpful in  functional modelling of organizations with cyber physical compatibility (Jeon et al., 2020). The transformation will allow the organization to be interconnected to represent a new age in the organization along with ensuring the consistency in the industrial value chain. More than that, it enables the organization for radical changes and innovative measures which seeks the focus upon the employee education and training, directives for organizational strategy, business processes and cultural breakpoints for adhering  to data driven technology (Kohnová et al., 2019). Industry 4.0 will revolutionize the existing organizational process spanning from manufacturing to delivery plans with solutions from technological findings and processed data to coordinate the smart warehousing, automated inventory management, with tracking of product and asset.

However, the sharing of information in real time will be helpful to accommodate the supply chain which is crucial for generating the cash flow operation with respect to market demand to satisfy the broad base of consumers to gain superiority in the market operation. It is necessary to reflect the perception of several stakeholders to be considered in the organizational architecture for a more comprehensive business process where digital leadership’s visionary accommodates the employee with changing aspects of the organization to support the daily business outcome. Human competence, man-machine interaction with automated control methods is simplifying the operational dynamics of the organization in a new dimension with model checking and virtual commissioning (Philippot et al., 2018). The servitization framework will undergo smoothness of business interfaces, adaptation of technology and substituting digitization for business model innovation to maintain the demand-pull with technology-push (Frank et al., 2019). Apart from that, digital leadership with people management skill, strong communication, interoperability and cultural competency will coordinate the vast team to adopt the organizational changes in accordance with trust and loyalty to the leadership for better business perspectives.

The process of corporate business transformation towards Industry 4.0 will merge the stakeholder’s expectation and requirements which allow the incorporation of a circular economy and lean management to strengthen the financial and environmental commitment (Alkaraan et al., 2022). It also allows the leadership’s firmness, solidarity and responsiveness to support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to enhance the organizational value with social duty and responsibilities. It may be observed that, the organizational business transformation with Industry 4.0 will allow the leadership to coordinate the global supply chain to manage the market demand with better cooperation and tracking of recent development in accordance to market trend and consumer behaviour. Other than that, it allows the leadership to manage and support the global operation with digital tools and technology to create value for the partners as well as customers and employees.

3.2 Coordinate the team with hybrid or remote set up to support the business operation with the help of digital technology

It may be opined that as a digital leader it is also significant to collaborate the dispersed team corresponding the organizational business process in a daily and timely manner. Specifically, the team coordination will be enhanced through video conferencing, telecommuting, chat, email, sharing work progress in cloud based platforms, real time checking and other integrated methods. Leadership responsibility is to communicate and actualize the employee need and requirement in working in a hybrid set up. The Covid-19 pandemic and the strict regulations pushed the organization to evolve with the intuition and adopt the digital tools for performing the organizational need to achieve market competitiveness and growth. On a specific note, many organizations have adopted the work from home opportunity as well as others are providing hybrid setup with employee preferences and degree of responsibility to the business process. Big data, data analytics, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has allowed the employee to coordinate the production, inventory management and warehouse distribution from the cosiness of home. Leadership will supervise safety, security, health and quality of the product along with the employee well being to make the organizational productivity consistent.

Quality assurance, decision control, supply chain arrangement along with psychological support to the employee by the leadership will reconfirm the business process in a progressive way to achieve the organizational objective altogether.  The use of Virtual Private Network (VPN) will make the organizational process confident and secure from the outside world to carry away the sophisticated business strategy for growth and responsiveness. The initiatives of leadership for competence development will enhance the cyber-physical system to go according to the query proceeded techniques and human interfaces for automated business functionary (Pinzone et al., 2017). The knowledge, skills and abilities are groomed through leadership intervention for process specific contribution to effectively manage and enhance the employee performances through Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

3.3 importance of digital transformation in the organization

The economic globalisation along with the Covid-19 outbreak has changed the global business scenario where it altered the people’s way of living and the world population are cornered to adopt the remote working setup for health and safety consciousness. Business organizations also took the opportunity to grow business perspectives along with the altered market trend and consumer preference where it allows the employees to coordinate the business processes from the remote get up with wide availability of internet. Industry 4.0 has perfectly combined in the business function with cross dependency to continue the overall business process spanning from outsourcing raw materials, production, smart warehousing, shop floor sensor, IoT devices to make the organization fully automated. Leadership strategic changes with real time application to control and manage the organizational process through cloud computing, telecommuting, video conferencing, asset management, inventory management, mobile work with flexible timing has formulated the modern age business communication to withstand the market competition with robust supply chain management. The practice of agile manufacturing, mass customization, virtualization of business process, smoother inter-company interaction of supply chain management allows the organization to meet the market demand through remote setup. The real time access of product, participating entities, and autonomous system exchanges with modular simulation has allowed industrial communication to be business friendly and collaborative for rapid product innovation (Brettel et al., 2017).

Section 4: personal development plan

Personal development plan is the procedure to sum up the skills and abilities in a systematic order to attain the set of goals to become a successful professional with strengths, weaknesses and untapped potential. It also enables me to find out the deficiencies and to plan a rigid outline to integrate the Self Development Learning (SDL) for increasing productivity and job performance (Lejeune et al., 2021).

4.1 goal setting

Short term goal (next 12 months)

1. My short term goal is to use my skills of strategic planning, designing, budgeting and researching in my internship program to secure a high percentage.
2. My listening activity, observation, quality assessment and numerical reasoning is to be coordinated to complete the course of machine learning, automation and data analytics in the next 3 months.

Midterm goal (next 2-3 year)

1. My midterm goal is to obtain a position of middle manager in Amazon to assist the business process through cloud service with my strengths of decision making, crisis management, mentoring and adaptability
2. In addition to that I want to exclusively exercise my strengths of multi tasking, networking, creativity and innovation and presentation building skills to sharpen and utilize my true potential.
3. My agreeableness will allow me to harmoniously coordinate the dispersed team digitally in the position of digital leader with the specific avoidance of arguments and opinion differences to cohort the team functioning as per the business need.

Long term goal (next 10 year)

1. My long term goal is to work as a project coordinator of Amazon where I will be able to communicate between different projects, clients and the vendors with my negotiation, public speaking, delegating, troubleshooting, and facilitating the trust and strong relationship.   I will be responsible for encouraging autonomy and delegate more to recognize the individual contribution with reward and motivation to sell the benefits of cooperation; shared knowledge and personal understanding (Refer to Appendix-3).

4.2 Personal objectives

Table 2: Personal development plan

(Source: Self created)

References

Alkaraan, F., Albitar, K., Hussainey, K. and Venkatesh, V.G., 2022. Corporate transformation toward Industry 4.0 and financial performance: The influence of environmental, social, and governance (ESG). Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 175, p.121423.

Bals, L., Laine, J. and Mugurusi, G., 2018. Evolving Purchasing and Supply Organizations: A contingency model for structural alternatives. Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, 24(1), pp.41-58.

Brettel, M., Friederichsen, N., Keller, M. and Rosenberg, M., 2017. How virtualization, decentralization and network building change the manufacturing landscape: an industry 4.0 perspective. FormaMente, 12.

Eisenberg, J., Post, C. and DiTomaso, N., 2019. Team dispersion and performance: The role of team communication and transformational leadership. Small Group Research, 50(3), pp.348-380.

Frank, A.G., Mendes, G.H., Ayala, N.F. and Ghezzi, A., 2019. Servitization and Industry 4.0 convergence in the digital transformation of product firms: A business model innovation perspective. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 141, pp.341-351.

Gateway Group. 2022. Software Engineering Company, IT Consulting Services. [online] Available at: <https://thegatewaycorp.com/> [Accessed 11 January 2022].

Hao, Q., Shi, Y. and Yang, W., 2019. How leader-member exchange affects knowledge sharing behavior: understanding the effects of commitment and employee characteristics. Frontiers in psychology, 10, p.2768.

Jeon, B., Yoon, J.S., Um, J. and Suh, S.H., 2020. The architecture development of Industry 4.0 compliant smart machine tool system (SMTS). Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, 31(8), pp.1837-1859.

Kohnová, L., Papula, J. and Salajová, N., 2019. Internal factors supporting business and technological transformation in the context of Industry 4.0. Business: Theory and Practice, 20, pp.137-145.

Lejeune, C., Beausaert, S. and Raemdonck, I., 2021. The impact on employees’ job performance of exercising self-directed learning within personal development plan practice. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 32(5), pp.1086-1112.

Magni, M., Ahuja, M.K. and Maruping, L.M., 2018. Distant but fair: Intra-team justice climate and performance in dispersed teams. Journal of Management Information Systems, 35(4), pp.1031-1059.

Mazzucchelli, A., Chierici, R., Tortora, D. and Fontana, S., 2021. Innovation capability in geographically dispersed R&D teams: The role of social capital and IT support. Journal of Business Research, 128, pp.742-751.

Philippot, A., Riera, B., Kunreddy, V. and Debernard, S., 2018, May. Advanced tools for the control engineer in Industry 4.0. In 2018 IEEE Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems (ICPS) (pp. 555-560). IEEE.

Pinzone, M., Fantini, P., Perini, S., Garavaglia, S., Taisch, M. and Miragliotta, G., 2017, September. Jobs and skills in Industry 4.0: an exploratory research. In IFIP International Conference on Advances in Production Management Systems (pp. 282-288). Springer, Cham.

Prentice, M., Jayawickreme, E. and Fleeson, W., 2019. Integrating whole trait theory and self‐determination theory. Journal of personality, 87(1), pp.56-69.

Zeike, S., Bradbury, K., Lindert, L. and Pfaff, H., 2019. Digital leadership skills and associations with psychological well-being. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(14), p.2628.

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