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Despite increased acceptance of mobile and web applications at work, a huge proportion of senior leaders report challenges in dealing with the changes brought on by technology, as Cath Everett reports. As the world becomes increasingly digital, this brings with it challenges as well as benefits. In fact, the latest Management Agenda survey from leadership institute Roffey Park found that two in five respondents feel that the biggest organisational challenge they will face over the next five years is dealing with changes to how they work brought about by technology. [pullquote]Technology is intensifying existing tensions and paradoxes and stretching leadership capacity.” - Steve Hearsum, Roffey Park[/pullquote] The majority (60%) said that digital technologies and social media were already changing how they did things. But when asked how managerial colleagues were faring in terms of exploiting the potential opportunities opened up, two-thirds predicted that their organisation would need to either develop or recruit fresh leadership skills in the future. Steve Hearsum, Roffey Park’s programme director of leadership in a digital age, explains: “There’s always been a gap between technology, leaders and social processes in organisations, communities and society - but digital, however you define it, is just making the gap get wider more quickly. So technology is intensifying existing tensions and paradoxes and stretching leadership capacity.” But it is this lack of a clear definition of what “digital” actually means that can cause problems. People often end up talking at cross-purposes: “How you define it depends on who you ask and who’s asking the question, but what is clear is that it isn’t just about technology and boxes. “It’s about the shifting nature of relationships between people and organisations, changing social processes and the way in which things take place,” he says. This lack of common understanding of the term, even within different parts of the same business, makes it vital that managers take the lead in guiding the workforce through the current ambiguity and uncertainty.
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