Globalization significantly influenced the existing business practices and changed the conditions for business organizations. In facing the global competition, modern businesses must adapt quickly to changing conditions by implementing the newest strategies and techniques. Human resources present one of the main assets in business organizations. The efficiency and quality of the overall workforce combined with employees’ individual skills determine the chances of a business’s success. The development of digital technologies significantly contributes to the growing globalization trend in business. According to Novikov (2021), the digitalization of business and the economy is closely associated with the level of employees’ digital literacy. Digitalization emphasizes the need for specific leadership skills, which were unimportant in traditional business forms. The Global Enterprises company is interested in defining four primary leadership skills relevant to the modern business industry. Mr. Yusuf Kaplan is specifically interested in getting recommendations on how to develop these relevant leadership skills in employees.
Purpose
The purpose of this report is to define the four most important leadership skills relevant to the conditions of globalization in the business industry. The client will use this information to develop leadership skills in existing employees.
Digital Literacy
Globalization processes are closely connected with the development of digital technologies; therefore, in order to be a strong leader, the employee should have the skills necessary for the organization of work in a digital space. According to Philip and Gavrilova Aguilar (2022), many industry professionals recognize that technology skills are necessary for leaders who manage work in a digital workspace. Digitalization of business processes can significantly improve the organization’s efficiency by increasing the speed of regular operations by implementing automated systems such as automatic report generation. Unfortunately, not many businesses recognize the importance of leaders’ digital literacy for the overall digitalization of work processes, and many organizations experienced difficulties in organizing remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Leaders should exemplify the qualities that employees should strive to develop, and therefore leaders should promote the digitalization of work processes by increasing the level of their computer literacy.
E-leadership Communication
While knowledge of basic digital literacy presents one substantial skill for leaders in the business industry, the application of knowledge in the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) presents a different relevant skill. The e-leadership communication skill can be perceived as an intersection of the leader’s communication skills with knowledge of the appropriate digital resources for their applications. Thus, according to Liu et al. (2018), traits and characteristics contributing to an individual’s e-leadership communication skills include flexibility, analytic skills, technical knowledge, and a desire to continue to learn and develop. Even though there are several stable cases of ICT successfully applied for internal communication within the organization, such as e-mail, ICT continues to develop and provide even higher benefits for businesses. Therefore, leaders should develop skills that help them successfully utilize existing communication skills in the digital space.
E-team Building Skills
The development of globalization in the modern business industry is marked by significant growth of opportunities in remote work and digital services. Even within one team, several members can work from different parts of the world. The issue draws attention to a leader’s team building skills and ability to motivate employees. According to Wart et al. (2019), e-team building skills allow leaders to successfully integrate new virtual employees into the team and ensure the understanding of team members’ work purpose. Furthermore, it is important that virtual members receive the same amount of motivation as face-to-face team members. Employees’ motivation presents an important factor for overall business productivity. Thus, leaders should develop e-team building skills to manage employees’ motivation and provide support for virtual members to avoid diminishing their worth compared to face-to-face employees.
High Speed Decision-Making
The speed of information exchange was significantly increased during the technological turn in the development of globalization in business. Many leaders are forced to make urgent decisions without having appropriate information support, which emphasizes the impotence of problem-solving leadership skills (Cortellazzo et al., 2019). Thus, leaders must develop necessary analytical skills, such as fast information processing, to avoid making ill-informed or impulsive decisions.
References
Cortellazzo, L., Bruni, E., & Zampieri, R. (2019). The role of leadership in a digitalized world: A review. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1938–1938.
Liu, C., Ready, D., Roman, A., Van Wart, M., Wang, X., McCarthy, A., & Kim, S. (2018). E-leadership: an empirical study of organizational leaders’ virtual communication adoption. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 39(7), 826–843.
Novikov, V. V. (2021). Digitalization of economy and education: Path to business leadership and national security. Business Ethics and Leadership, 5(2), 147–155.
Philip, J., & Gavrilova Aguilar, M. (2022). Student perceptions of leadership skills necessary for digital transformation. Journal of Education for Business, 97(2), 86–98.
Van Wart, M., Roman, A., Wang, X., & Liu, C. (2019). Operationalizing the definition of e-leadership: identifying the elements of e-leadership. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 85(1), 80–97.