“The path to the CEO’s office should not be through the CFO’s office, and it should not be through the marketing department. It needs to be through engineering and design.” – Elon Musk
A new type of leadership is emerging. It is visionary, tech savvy, cross discipline, cultural focused, and completely collaborative.
Industry 4.0, its derivatives, and its competitors are essentially strategies for use of technology to enhance business and industry. It has become a national strategy both in Germany (its birthplace) and here in Australia – Australia’s Industry 4.0 Task Force follows the German model. Similar programs exist in countries worldwide under various names.
Its effects are extremely far reaching. Some of its foundations are profoundly connective, such as the Cloud, Internet of Things, and Industrial Internet of Things for instance. They are not only connective, but also offer great potential for business model innovation and creating end-to-end solutions on a whole new scale.
The Cloud and Internet of Things are already rapidly changing our enterprise landscape. For example, cloud enterprise solutions, AI, and FinTech are examples of where the enterprise is being virtualised, allowing high levels of automation and improved business strategy, data visibility and analytics. This expands potential for B2B and B2C. The Industrial Internet of Things is fast connecting the operational world with the enterprise, with the convergence point in the virtual environment. Now organisations are increasingly integrated between their enterprise and their operations. Now new business models are emerging at a rate never seen before.
Looking past the hype of Industry 4.0 and the arguments over its definition and standards, we see many examples of organisations using it to advantage. It doesn’t end with organisations either. Industry clusters are forming and concepts from Industry 4.0 are enabling them to converge and unify in this virtual space.
It is in this connectivity, in this virtual space, in this integration, where endless new opportunities are emerging.
This is where the new leadership paradigm is emerging.
The new leader will have more in common with Elon Musk, a Millennial technologist CEO, or a future leader still in school today. They will embody visionary, tech savvy, cross discipline, cultural and collaborative.
It is a given that a leader is visionary.
In a world where Industry 4.0 and similar ideas underpin national strategies worldwide, it is a given that a leader is tech savvy.
With enterprise, operations, organisations and industry clusters connecting in the virtual world, it is a given that leaders are cross-discipline.
To be truly connective, innovative and realise the greatest opportunity, a leader must be cultural focused. Cultural and societal needs are the greatest opportunities of all.
To actually make it happen, the new leader needs to be completely collaborative. Opportunity is downscaled when the level of collaboration is downscaled. Potential is realised when all stakeholders contribute to the solution. Engagement becomes a conversation between customers, suppliers, supporters, regulators, organisations and wider society itself.
This is the new leadership paradigm. One where visionaries collaborate with other visionaries, to innovate and drive meaningful wide scale solutions, catering to cultural and societal needs. The new leader will be as much team player and collaborator as they are a leader, as it takes a team of leaders to realise Industry wide or cross-industry opportunities.
The job of leader has become more challenging, but more rewarding.