Reflecting Emerging Digital Technologies in Leadership Models

Abstract

In this chapter, Smith and Cockburn reaffirm their claim in a previous book that today's global business contexts are volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA), and leaders must focus more on complex thinking skills and mindsets than developing behavioral competencies. In so doing, leaders must be familiar with the benefits and drawbacks of emerging digital technologies and use these technologies appropriately. In the previous book, the authors defined flexible and dynamic leadership models that assure success in the above contexts and described learning related processes essential to mastering the ability to adapt at rates consistent with the business complexity leaders now face. In this chapter, they extend their previous research and review newly emerging factors contributing to global business complexity in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR4.0) and explain how these elements may be applied by leaders, including CEOs and Boards of Directors, to augment the power of their recommended leadership models.