Digital Leadership

Abstract

Advances in digitalization place completely new demands on both political and economic leaders as well as on society as a whole. In addition to technical skills as a basis for dealing with and understanding digital technologies, digitalization demands that relevant decision-makers have a digital mindset so that they can recognize and correctly assess the opportunities and challenges associated with digitalization. Against this backdrop, this article presents a conceptual framework for digital leadership and explains the motives as well as the opportunities and challenges associated with it. It also shows how the critical capabilities of a digital leader contributes to the realization of their strategic vision of successful digitalization. The article concludes by discussing whether and how digital leadership can support successful digital transformation in the economy and society, and it points out possible fields for future research.