The COVID-19 pandemic has created serious disruptions to both public and private sectors throughout the world. It has forced businesses to undergo digital transformation that most of them would have avoided for another few years if it wasn’t for the pandemic.
Technology leadership will continue to play an important role as this crisis unfolds, especially as nonprofits and associations address the serious loss of revenue from in-person conventions and other meetings. Virtual event technology has been around a while, but it’s only been embraced by a few organizations.
At a high management level, technology can be one of the most useful tools to help you become a better leader. There is no question about it: technology is the driving force behind the new style of leadership especially in these peculiar times. This leadership style embraces change with a focus on improved productivity, communication and collaboration to build effective teams, while establishing robust learning process for continuous skill development that answers evolving market needs.
Empowering People Through Technology
With remote employed, there is a huge shift in the way we work and people are more digitally connected to their leaders than they ever have been. The demands on people have never been higher as they are having to cope with countless aspects, be it health concerns, caring for children and elderly at home and household work, along with professional deliverables at work. The leaders have a larger responsibility to understand these challenges and stride this situation more wisely and carefully by optimizing technology smartly.
The capability to use of technology is dependent on how openly people embrace it and their understanding of how it can make their life better. This is where leaders can play a pivotal role and lead by example, demonstrating that technology is an essential resource and not merely a tactical solution to a problem. This mindset opens up limitless possibilities of how technology can be a powerful transformational enabler for every single individual across the organization.
When various companies offer similar packages of benefits to their employees, what really makes the difference for a loyal employee is the work/life balance they can expect to achieve. The modern business environment is decentralized. Teams no longer need to be cooped up together in the same office building or the same meeting room.
No matter what advanced systems you put in place, at the end of the day, people are the most important asset your company can possibly have. In a world where technology evolves rapidly and the skills gap is growing, it’s important to create an environment where your people recognize the trust you have in them and their ideas.
Implementation of Technology For Optimised Productivity
Practical asset in technology is helping organizations reap maximum benefits as this approach allows leaders to prepare their people to embrace and become comfortable in using technology, so that it becomes spontaneously embedded in an organization at a fundamental level.
The investments we proactively made many years ago, whether in secure virtual platforms or AI-driven due diligence processes that help automate how we finalize our contracts, has helped us seamlessly adapt to working with minimum disruption. The biggest asset has been the spontaneous comfort level of our people in adapting to this transformed scenario of working from home, due to their prior high degree of familiarity with using technology platforms and processes at work over the past many few years, ensuring our ability to optimize productivity.
The new business world is made up of connected devices, artificial intelligence, and secure cloud business solutions. These enable teams to work together more efficiently than ever and empower companies to expand their reach towards new markets across the globe.
Enhanced Teamwork Through Collaborative Platforms
Effective teamwork is at the heart of lasting success, smart leaders have always known that. The challenge that the COVID-19 pandemic created was the sudden and abrupt transition to work from home, across the board. This has likely caught many people unawares because of not being used to working for a prolonged period of time from home. Apart from any potential discomfort people might feel working from home, because of reliance on the office environment and its facilities, such change can also cause mental disorientation that comes from not being able to physically interact with colleagues. This is an area where technology has been a game changer in helping build effective teams.
With technology making virtual interaction easier than ever, it facilitates ongoing contact amongst team members, enabling them to get to know one another better and stay on the same page, which keeps them from becoming disengaged and less accountable. Online chat tools and virtual meeting platforms not only enable an exchange of vital information, but also encourage camaraderie that remote-based teams can often find difficult to cultivate and nurture. We have seen high participation levels among our people in using virtual collaboration platforms such as Microsoft teams that has not only helped build strong engagement among colleagues, alleviating to a large extent a feeling of isolation stemming from working from home, but has also enabled seamless work by interacting with clients and other external stakeholders.
Technology does not mean only advanced computation and IT solutions. It also means social media and the new concept of social leadership. A leader now has the most wide-reaching channels of communication available. They can influence their employees, motivate their sales teams, build customer loyalty and connect with peers through various social media platforms.
A radical movement to a new way of doing things is most accurately called a revolution only in hindsight. The infiltration of technology into our world is a matter of evolution.
