Korn Ferry announced findings from an in-depth research, which finds that leaders across India leaders need to embrace a radical mind-set shift to enable real and sustainable digital change within their organisations. The study also highlighted that leaders across APAC are not yet digital-ready and risk derailing digital sustainability initiatives by perpetuating legacy ways of working.
The report, titled “Digital Leadership in Asia Pacific”, analysed the leadership profiles of more than 9,000 leaders from eight APAC countries and territories including the 2600 Indian leaders, and compared these profiles against the traits, competencies and drivers of great digital leaders[1]. The countries and territories involved in the study include: Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, and South Korea.
Across the region, a few bright stars are Australia and India, fare relatively well against the profile of a great digital leader. However, much of APAC is struggling with the scale of change required and looking for a way through the complexity.
India is one of the great global growth markets and the government’s investment in the Digital India initiative is unleashing the power of digital connection. Indian business leaders see the market opportunities, yet many continue to struggle with what “digital” looks like for their organisations, particularly as they continue to enjoy strong performance today.
Korn Ferry’s analysis compares a sample of over 2,600 Indian leaders to the digital leadership profile. The findings suggest that Indian leaders need to embrace a radical mind-set shift to enable real and sustainable digital change within their organisations. Great digital leaders don’t only deliver results right now; they also create the conditions for future success. Market demand in India will only increase, so the race is on to capture the competitive advantage on offer.
While Indian leaders are strongly motivated by challenge and have proven capacity to engage and inspire their people and deliver results, their preference for structure currently hinders their ability to engage and inspire their people in uncertain conditions and cultivate innovative thinking. It also promotes the “safe” approach, rather than giving free rein to more entrepreneurial thinking and iterative decision-making and stifles curiosity, confidence and risk-taking.
Avdesh Mittal, Senior Client Partner and Managing Director, Digital Practice, APAC, Korn Ferry, said: “Digital transformation is about cultural change at an unprecedented scale. It’s not just about recruiting a digital marketing manager or deploying an e-commerce channel and then saying, “I’ve done digital”. Change of this magnitude requires a shift in mind -set and conviction from top leadership which cascades through to the grassroots of the organisation. Yes, there is risk involved and this can challenge a leader’s conviction, but the world is not going to wait.”
“With disruption now the norm, future success depends on the ability to continuously adapt and change: not just with the business model but a culture change on a grand scale,” said Michael Distefano, Chief Operating Officer, Korn Ferry Asia Pacific. “The role of leaders in activating people to support change is therefore of utmost importance. But first, leaders must personally transform to inspire and engage their people and create a more open, agile and networked culture to power performance,” he continued.
