Developing e-leaders - how can education help?

Professor Sharm Manwani of Henley Business School explains how many IT leaders are 'created' rather than 'born'

Nature of e-leadership
Are leaders born or made? This is an age-old question and clearly leadership education relies on the latter being accepted to some extent, even if certain personal traits are highly desirable as an entry point.

When it comes to e-leadership, additional skills covering business competence and technology exploitation are needed. Hence any e-leadership programme must generate learning outcomes that demonstrate all three dimensions - business, technology, personal.

Another major debate is whether leaders must always be executives or can be found at any level in the organisation. I was asked to facilitate an IT leadership session at a top European multinational, where the senior HR person believed leadership development had to be for top managers while the CIO believed in developing leaders at all levels. It made for an interesting session!

Research commissioned by the European Commission (EC) and other groups recognises this difference by classifing executives and professionals as different target audiences for e-leadership education. The analysis, conducted initially in large scale enterprises, concluded that there is a significant shortage of e-leadership skills in both groups.

Bridging demand and supply for e-leadership
In response to the skills gap, the EC created a major initiative to bridge the demand and supply for e-leadership. A significant output was to create curriculum profiles that define the target content and approach for best practice - leadership development programmes.

The concept of a curriculum profile (CP) is to capture the essential elements of any educational programme for e-leadership positions. CPs are mapped to the European e-Competence Framework which defines a comprehensive range of IT skills. Those successfully completing a course of education compliant with a CP are expected to be better prepared for e-leadership roles in the economy.

The aim is that CPs can be used by demand and supply stakeholders in the e-leadership education ecosystem. EuroCIO, a membership group for CIOs of large organisations, has been instrumental in the set-up of the initial CPs. Employer organisations can check their development needs by reviewing the learning outcomes for the relevant CPs.

Educational institutions can use the CPs to evaluate existing and proposed programmes against best practice curricula. Several have already completed evaluation of their e-leadership programme by matching these to the appropriate CP.

E-leadership learning outcomes
A key part of the CPs is the definition of learning outcomes. Learning outcomes for a profile are identified through analysis of the responsibilities and benefit delivery expected of the role. The starting point was to define meta-skills for an e-leader. Based on consolidating inputs from prior EC reviews, the conclusion was that an e-leader leads inter‐disciplinary staff and builds capability to:

• Innovate strategic business and operating models
• Exploit digital trends
• Envision and drive change for business performance
• Influence stakeholders across boundaries

The next stage was to identify learning outcomes for key e-leadership roles, with a priority being those of business and enterprise architects. The conclusion was that, on successful completion of the curriculum, a business architect will be able to:

• Create architectural designs that help innovate strategic business and operating models
• Exploit digital trends to develop target model architectures
• Envision and drive architectural change for business performance
• Influence architectural stakeholders across boundaries
• Build architectural capability and lead inter‐disciplinary staff

Summary
Executives and professionals who operate at the business/IT boundary recognise that standing still is not an option. Evolution of business models and emerging technologies creates a significant risk that staff and consultants will be seen as 'legacy people' similar to legacy systems that cannot cope with innovative digital technologies.

My experiences as a CIO and as a professor at Henley confirm that leading organisations which are proactive in developing their staff have benefitted significantly from this investment.

Professor Sharm Manwani is a lecturer at Henley Business School