By Floyd Mac Donald
Is your leadership and management team fully prepared for the Fourth Industrial Revolution?
The Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0)
According to the World Economic Forum (2016, 2020), we are in The Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution driven by artificial intelligence and cyber-physical systems. For instance, in the case of artificial intelligence, we already experience drones, ChatGPT, real-time package tracking, virtual voice assistance, self-driving cars, and Smart TVs connected to the Internet around us.
Emerging technologies
Nowadays, we have unlimited possibilities to connect with others worldwide through smartphones or tablets. We also have unlimited access to knowledge, information and data from the Internet. All made possible by emerging technologies in our daily life and work, such as artificial intelligence (AI), especially Generative AI, robotics, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, quantum computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud technology, blockchain technology, and cyber-physical systems (CPS). Above all, we see a major technological shift from simple digitization (e.g. scanning a photograph or a digital copy of a historical document on a computer) to innovation based on combinations and fusions of artificial intelligence (e.g. smartphones or speech recognition), and cyber-physical systems (e.g. airbag deployment systems in cars or manufacturing and logistics robotics).
Impact on Education & Training
As a result, these technological innovations have a major impact on businesses, organizations and employees who are forced to re-evaluate their operations. Moreover, this shift fosters disruptive digital business models, digital transformation, and changes in production processes. These changes can cause businesses to reevaluate which skill sets, knowledge, and competencies are needed for the next generation of leadership and management. In light of this, it is important to ask whether your leadership and management team is fully prepared for the Fourth Industrial Revolution of AI, CPS, Robotics, Digital transformation, Automation, or more.
Leadership challenges
Through ongoing education and training, businesses and organizations must stay on top of technological advancements. Often it is said that education and training are ineffective if you cannot apply the newly acquired and relevant knowledge, skills, and competencies on the job. The so-called 'transfer skill gap'. How do you quickly adapt to such advancements? The following steps can help identify and determine the most critical leadership and management skills, knowledge and competencies. Moreover, it can help attract and keep your leadership & management team engaged and motivated.
Understand the Implications of Emerging Technologies
To begin, leaders and managers must understand these emerging technologies, their implications, potential risks, and their impact on multigenerational workforces. It is also critical to know how these technologies reshape the economic, social and cultural environment; for example, education quality, social networks and employment security. In addition, they need to be able to analyze and understand enormous amounts of information and data. Furthermore, knowing how to use it to improve employee engagement and job performance while operating in a digital and highly disruptive and challenging business environment is imperative.
Strategic Stakeholders' Alliances
Further, the business world is becoming increasingly dynamic and challenging, so leaders and managers must adopt a strategy of fostering alliances between strategic stakeholders. This is because employees, customers, boards of directors, government agencies, suppliers and vendors, and investors have unlimited access to information and data. Their added value expectations are changing dramatically. Modern leadership balances the ability to leverage technology and interpret data. However, it must also acquire specific skills such as critical thinking and emotional and social intelligence skills. This means that businesses and organizations have to consider an approach to build a healthy and effective leadership pipeline with the necessary knowledge, skills and competencies to understand their strategic stakeholders’ alliances capabilities and to lead in the digital era.
The importance of leadership and management
Thirdly, there must be increasing awareness and buy-in on change management as a core skill set in businesses and organizations. Deep change management expertise and leadership skills will inevitably be necessary to drive adaptation in today’s disruptive and highly dynamic business environment. Further, acquiring additional specific skills and behaviours, such as adaptive thinking (the ability to respond to unique and unexpected circumstances), proactive people management (able to use a personal approach and communication skills to develop team members), computational thinking (able to filter and make sense of vast amounts of information and data), and effectively timely feedback will be helpful. Also, fostering a sense of belonging, inclusion, a healthy and positive work environment for employees, and the ability to blend different leadership styles to achieve business objectives and goals are equally as crucial.
Take your own action
In summary, being prepared to lead and manage in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is about a paradoxical and adaptive mindset. This mindset is open to forming alliances, dealing with competing demands and expectations, and being receptive and critical to evolving ideas and changes. Perhaps the best response to leadership challenges is to ensure that tomorrow’s leaders and managers are adaptable, responsive to market changes, and capable of tuning in and connecting with changing views of reality and perspectives in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Floyd Mac Donald BPE MSc MBA is the founder and principal at Mac Donald Consultancy. We inspire and coach clients to use an integrated and multi-perspective approach. Combined with an adaptive mindset and our integrated services, we identify and assist in solving clients' challenges and improving their business effectively.