As the world of work evolves, so too do the leadership skills required to lead a company successfully and sustainably.
In 2021, Harvard Business Review published this article detailing research on the most wanted skills in a CEO. While financial expertise and operational experience are still considered important, the study authors argue that they will only take executives so far and that strong social skills and emotional intelligence are increasingly in demand.
Raconteur identified empathy and leadership by delegation and participation as crucial skills post-COVID-19, and in another Harvard Business Review article, Dan Graves argues that today’s CEOs (and those of the future) need hands-on digital experience.
“With every business turning into a digital and data business, every CEO needs to lead his or her company’s digital transformation personally,” Graves writes. “Nothing could hurt a company more in the future than the mistaken notion that becoming a digital business is simply the CTO or CIO’s problem.”
At Numata, we couldn’t agree more. In fact, given that according to the results of PwC’s 25th CEO Survey, released in early 2022, CEOs rank cyber risks as the top threat to growth, with health risks close behind, we feel that prioritising technological understanding at the C-suite level in businesses is an urgent matter.
“What many people fail to understand is that most businesses are 100% reliant on the technology that they run, how they run it, and how they manage it,” says Numata CEO Jakobus Koorts. “There’s an acceptance of the importance of information, but there’s less understanding of how to secure that information, how to work with it, how to get the most out of it. This relates to understanding technology well enough to be able to harness its power in formulating and shaping strategy moving forward. Formulating and implementing strategy is a key leadership skill set.”
Strategy before tech choice
Jakobus says that many companies get stuck on technology and think about how to make it work for them, instead of starting with strategy and then investigating technology tools that can enable the strategy.
As an example, he cites Numata’s performance management system and processes. Before evaluating tools, the company needed to understand what it wanted to achieve, which in this case was to keep employees engaged and to help them not only be productive but also to increase their personal development and value over time. Once the objectives were understood, Numata could begin to unpack the processes, looking at which bits would be easy to automate and where automation would create a more cumbersome experience. Then the management team could match their needs with a system, instead of trying to fit in with a technology tool.
“Implementing a new technology tool for performance management is something that would traditionally fall to an IT manager or a business analyst or consultant, but what we’ve seen is that often the problem is not the technology – it’s that a business does not understand what they want to achieve with the technology,” says Jakobus. “Technology should enable strategy. It, therefore, follows that you need a leadership team that understands and buys into technology. It’s not the tech that’s the competitive advantage – everyone has access to the same products on the market – it’s what you do with the tech. Nine times out of ten when we get called in to help solve a technology problem, it’s not the technology that’s the problem – it’s a poorly articulated vision.”
Asking the right questions
Paul McKay, Head of Sales at Numata, says that investing in technology for technology’s sake results in under-used resources. “As much as it's perhaps something that might be uncomfortable for some leaders – to move out of their comfort zone and get to grips with technology when it’s not their natural bent – it’s not about understanding every new technology, but about knowing the right questions to ask, which helps them to make the right decisions,” he says.
Jakobus says that management teams that don’t see technology as a strategic enabler for their business, but as something that the IT department should handle, will always struggle to unlock the benefits that technology can offer.
He says he’s not suggesting that CEOs become technologists, but that they learn to see technology the same way they do finance – where they invest time and effort in understanding some fundamentals and then have a trusted CFO who they can depend on to take day-to-day decisions in the best interests of the business. It’s important to find a trusted technology partner who can support the business in a similarly strategic manner.
“This needs to be someone who they can bring a business problem to and trust to translate a technological solution,” he says. “Just as you’d want your CFO to be analysing your balance sheet and your legal counsel to be advising you on managing risk, you need a technology partner you trust to help you create a roadmap for the future of your company. Many SMEs / SMBs can’t afford to have a full-time chief technology officer, and that’s the gap we aim to fill at Numata – to be an outsourced CIO for businesses who need someone to advise on technology from a strategic perspective.”
If you’re not sure where to start, read our blog post on IT strategy or get in touch and speak with one of our experts as we fulfil (the non-core yet critical) business-enabling role of IT.
