Technology Change and Leadership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Technology Change and Leadership - Essay Example Successful business change, however, is elusive even through consultancy with government, professional bodies and industry groups. This paper seeks to identify key challenges for organizational leadership in getting value from change enabled by technological advances. For CEOs and other leaders it is crucial that they possess a dynamic understanding of technological advances and ensure that, they are primed to capitalize on any new opportunities that it presents. They specifically have to keep track of external environmental developments in order to manage their implications for their own internal change programs. Visible and active leadership is needed to avoid lack of satisfactory exploitation for business benefits and extended timeframes for implementation. Technological integration is a major business transformation that involves organizational design, process change, and behavioral change. Business executives need to see these changes as technology-enabled and not as technology- driven. A number of challenges, including the need to revise and reconfigure business practices, processes, and people in parallel with technology changes, faces this. Additionally, they need to provide clear articulation and central purpose of the implementation program and its business benefits. ... These are normally attributed to individuals although analysis shows that they signify a standard response to poor leadership (Ackerman-Anderson & Anderson, 2010: p33). This has several implications for the CEO. He or she must set the purpose inherent in the implementation in relation to mission and strategy of the company. He/she must also comprehend the difference between holistic and incremental organizational change since with holistic change, one cannot reverse engineer (Ackerman-Anderson & Anderson, 2010: p35). Leadership must also be clear on the differences between implementation and installation since the former needs both organizational and technological change. Success for future leaders is also dependent on conviction and vision. Finally, as the project gains steam, leadership also needs to make space for others. Negative and positive feedback is vital at this point with rewards and a simple â€Å"well done† being vital (Ackerman-Anderson & Anderson, 2010: p35). To lead technological change, business leaders need to build capability for the ongoing change (Bates, 2010: p41). Under this requirement, leaders face a number of challenges. First, while individual projects undergo implementation from the bottom up, transformational portfolios require top-down development. The tendency to build the latter bottom-up risks the inclusion of redundant initiatives. Top-down portfolios should be used only for technological and organizational change that is mission critical. Adoption of a strategic perspective needs the leaders to articulate their overall change policy such as highlighting reductions in budgets and headcounts, as well as structural realignments. Time wasting will normally result from project attrition and CEOs need to deal upfront with crucial