Reflecting Emerging Digital Technologies in Leadership Models

Abstract

In this chapter, Smith and Cockburn reaffirm the claim that they made in a previous book (Smith & Cockburn, 2013), namely that today's global business environments are characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, and that leaders must focus less on developing behavioral competencies and more on complex thinking abilities and mindsets. In so doing, leaders must be familiar with emerging digital technologies, their benefits and drawbacks, and utilize these technologies in their practice as appropriate. In their previous book (Smith & Cockburn, 2013), the authors defined flexible and dynamic leadership models that assure successful leadership in the above turbulent contexts, and also described learning related processes that are essential to mastering the ability to learn and adapt at rates consistent with the business complexity leaders face. In this chapter, the authors extend their previous research (Smith & Cockburn, 2013), review newly emerging elements of social digital connectivity that are contributing to global business complexity, and explain how these elements may be applied by leaders to augment the power of the recommended dynamic leadership models.