What does it mean to be a tech-savvy leader?

Organizations worldwide are grappling with the complexities of today’s technology landscape. Successful integration of emerging technologies like generative AI is crucial, but many employees doubt their leaders’ ability to manage associated risks and opportunities, while enterprise leaders themselves are struggling to keep pace with rapid change. Here are some key data points that reinforce this:

• 85% of CEOs view AI as a strategic priority, yet only 33% feel their companies are making significant progress in integrating it.¹
• 94% of senior leaders report experiencing ‘tech anxiety’ amid rapid technological change.²
• 90% of employees do not feel prepared to integrate generative AI safely or responsibly.³
• 57% of executives question their management’s ability to handle AI-related risks and opportunities.⁴
• 93% of employees believe tech savviness is essential for organizational success, yet only 20% feel their leaders possess a tech-savvy mindset.⁵

Defining tech-savvy leadership

We believe that, at a minimum, a tech-savvy leader should be able to:

1. Understand technology: They grasp how technology works, its evolution, and its application in business. They are open and eager to learn continuously.
2. Make strategic decisions: They can identify which technologies to invest in, how to implement them, and how to measure their effectiveness.
3. Lead digital transformation: They guide their organizations through digital change, empowering teams to adapt to new technologies and working methods.
4. Communicate effectively: They articulate technology initiatives and their business impacts clearly to both technical and nontechnical stakeholders.

While this gives you a starting point, it’s important to drill down to the mindsets, skills, and behavior successful leaders display in order to identify and develop them effectively. The good news is that it’s unlikely you’ll need to adapt or change your existing leadership framework. Most comprehensive leadership frameworks already contain the critical dimensions for good tech-savvy leadership because these dimensions are fundamental to leaders operating successfully at scale in today’s increasingly complex world.

Yet, there are specific dimensions that disproportionately drive tech-savvy leadership. These include curiosity, a willingness to take informed risks, and an ability to operate and make decisions in ambiguous situations using critical reasoning abilities to evaluate the information available. Strong interpersonal skills, combined with the ability to inspire and engage others, are also key.

Understanding leadership in context

These dimensions cannot be considered in isolation. Specific market, organizational, and role context always informs which leadership capabilities are nonnegotiable. It also guides us as to what leader profiles will work more or less well in particular situations. As such, when we are assessing and developing senior leaders, we seek to gain an in-depth understanding of their context. Some of the questions we ask, include:

• Social, political, and economic environment: What trends and issues are prevalent?
• Industry and market forces: What are the market conditions and the state of the competitive landscape?
• Organizational size and ownership structure: How are decisions made and by whom?
• Organizational culture and maturity: Where is the company in its tech journey?
• Nature of the role: What are the core responsibilities of the leaders?
• Level of authority: Is their influence divisional, local, or global?

Identifying and hiring the right leaders—what you can do

While the shortage of tech-savvy leaders is real and troubling, you can identify and foster the mindsets, skills, and behaviors essential for driving technology-enabled growth and making informed executive-hiring decisions. The capabilities of tech-savvy leaders are closely aligned with those needed for leaders who excel at scale—outside-in thinking, risk tolerance, comfort with ambiguity, reasoning agility, and strong communication skills. When you also understand your market, organizational, and role context, you can create a detailed, behaviorally based profile for tech-savvy candidate assessment. Here are some suggestions:

1. Clarify talent needs: Understand the specific mindsets, skills, and behaviors required for critical roles within your organization.
2. Upskill existing leaders: Offer training and development opportunities to enhance key knowledge and skills.
3. Foster a learning culture: Encourage continuous learning and offer appropriate incentives as necessary to accelerate adoption.
4. Hire for potential scalability: Prioritize hiring and promoting individuals with the right mindsets and behaviors, even if their technical skills are not yet fully developed.
5. Understand context always matters: The market, organizational, and role context is vital for determining key success factors and building a behavior-based profile for assessing candidates.

To learn more about how RHR’s approach to assessing, coaching, and developing leaders may help you, please check out these resources:

• RHR Overview
• Assessing Critical Talent
• It’s Time to Rethink How You Identify Top Talent in Your Organization

To begin a conversation with us, please contact:

Nick Twyman, Partner, Head of Private Markets

Nick is an RHR partner and head of private markets working in the UK and Europe. His responsibilities include evolving RHR’s private equity solutions to meet rapidly changing business challenges around the globe.

ntwyman@rhrinternational.com

Anna Barras, Partner

Anna Barras is a London-based partner with RHR. An occupational psychologist with over 15 years’ experience in the field of leadership and organizational development, her expertise includes executive assessment and development, coaching, team facilitation, employee engagement, and strategic communications.

abarras@rhrinternational.com

1 PwC ’CEO Agenda: Navigating a Fractured World’ 2023
2 Valtech, Leadership in Tech 2024
3 MIT Sloan Management Review 2024
4 The Adecco Group, Napta report
5 Valtech, Leadership in Tech 2024