[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]As a business leader in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, your role has become multifaceted. It’s become more in depth from this definition, which was proposed 2004, in Human Resources Management:
“… the process whereby one individual influences others to willingly and enthusiastically direct their efforts and abilities towards attaining defined groups or organisational goals.”
Yes, leadership is still about influencing others but the world has changed so much that it is necessary to unpack the various layers that go into successfully influencing and motivating employees.
In addition, in the Fourth Industrial Revolution business leaders need to have a broad focus. They need to be focused on aspects such as technology and what the impact of this technology will be on their business. Whereas technology solutions were previously just the domain of the IT department, it has become a business imperative and something that needs to be decided on by the leaders of the company and the reasons why technology is incorporated into a business needs to align with business objectives.
Business leaders need to understand all aspects affecting the business. It is a well-known fact that macro-economic factors and the like influence how a business operates (one just has to look at the current coronavirus outbreak to see an example of this). However, what has changed is that these factors were intimately understood by people in other deparments and the leader only got the highlights – what he or she only ‘needed’ to know.
Now, in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the people who lead a business need to know everying that they can about these factors which influence a business as these factors have bcome integral in the running of a business and absence of this knowledge is fatal.
At the Fifth Annual Employment Conference, which was put on by Global Business Solutions, factors which are imperative for business leaders to know about were unpacked and discussed. For example, expert economists unpacked the current economic state that South Africa finds itself in and proposed methods of how it would be possible to set the economy on the correct trajectory.
In addition, labour law experts discussed a recent Constitutional Court Judgement surrounding retrenchments – a subject which is relevant to all businesses.
What was particularly interesting, and relevant to business who wants to properly take their organisations into the Fourth Industrial Revolution, are the skills that are necessary for business leaders to display in their organisations. Skills such as active listening are going to be vital as employees are looking to connect with their employers and be engaged in the work that they do for the organisation. This means that leaders will need to make them see that they understand where thjey are and what their concerns are so that the leaders can be better able to respond to these.
The Fourth industrial Revolution is here and has been around since 2012. It will probably last for the next ten years whereafter we’ll need to adapt to a whole lot of other principles that the Fifith Industrial Revolution. We can’t lose this time – we need to harness everything that the Fourth Industrial Revolution has to offer in order to benefit our organsiaitons.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]