Emerging technologies are rapidly evolving, transforming industries around the world and creating demand for more innovative customer experiences and operating models from their leadership teams
Workforces—and leadership teams—aren’t evolving quite as quickly.
By Heidrick & Struggles
Indeed, fewer than a third of companies are sure they have the talent they need in their leadership teams to thrive through digital transformation, according to a recent survey we conducted.1
Much of executives’ attention is focused on operational talent gaps in areas such as machine learning, user experience, or transitioning to the cloud. Those skills are crucial. But in our experience, when pursuing technological expertise, too many companies are overlooking the skills their most senior leaders need to change mind-sets and to guide their companies toward becoming fully digital, or “tech enabled.”
We call the mix of leadership and organizational acumen that leaders need “digital dexterity.” It combines adaptive, strategic, innovative, and executional skills in a particular mix to support both the technological and human side of transformation. Many leaders have mastered some elements of digital dexterity, but few have the full package. Knowing what skills are needed and why they matter will help teams build a long-term digital advantage that accelerates their companies’ performance.
What does digital dexterity mean for senior teams?
Heidrick & Struggles research has identified an elite set of organizations (among the world’s largest 500 companies by market capitalization) that consistently outperformed others based on compound annual average growth rate (CAGR) for organic revenue.2 These “superaccelerators” differentiated themselves not by industry, geography, or strategic focus; indeed, many were trying to do the same sensible things: put customers first, innovate, develop the right operating model, and so on. Rather, what differentiated the superaccelerators was their ability to mobilize, execute, and transform with agility—what we call META. At its core, META means the company adapts and pivots faster than its competitors—which is critical for the digital age.
Leadership teams, of course, have an outsize effect on company performance. Our research shows that the senior teams with the highest performance on the META performance factors (among the 3,000 teams we studied) had, on average, a 22.8% higher economic impact than other teams. Yet senior teams often have a harder time improving their own performance than that of other teams. In fact, 12% of senior teams were in the bottom quintile of team performance, compared to 6% of teams below the director level.3