The importance of leadership has never been in doubt. Equally, the speed of digital change has had a big impact on both the nature and the personality of the leadership role - namely, evolving it to become more “data-centric”. But what is a data-centric personality? It not solely about developing a greater appreciation of the value of data across the business, rather how it can be applied as a driver of more open, more human business operations.
Gaining such an understanding allows leaders to define and develop a corporate culture in the same mould, with employees naturally following the lead, to help change and improve every level of the business. This is much less top-down traditional leadership and more always-on, always-involved leadership that powers a data-led, people-powered business change.
Enthusiasm is contagious
Data-centric leadership combines management oversight with governance. You need to communicate your strategic goals and then provide direction and oversight to keep employees on track. Your enthusiasm will be crucial for maintaining momentum for data-driven projects. Be open about the possibilities. Enthuse about every opportunity – and share this with your colleagues.
Because enthusiasm is contagious – especially when you invite employees and partners to get involved in projects. Involvement communicates value and your colleagues will understand they are stakeholders in the business success – and that they have an important role to play in achieving and maintaining your data-driven goals. Even tiny, incremental improvements can help carry the business forwards – improvements that you and your people have in their power to enable.
Coordination and enablement
The data-centric manager ensures that employees have the tools and information then need to do their jobs. A traditional, multi-layered management structure tends to be slow to react, too inflexible to meet the fast-paced rate of change in your industry. But in our data-centric age, managers must bridge the gap between IT, operations and the rest of the business. As well as helping keep communications flowing across the organisation, managers must encourage everyone to think holistically – how are our actions contributing to strategy? What can we do better to achieve our goals?
A good example is the Pitney Bowes’ Inbound Document and Data Workflow solution - a tool that ensures inbound communication is processed quickly, easily and automatically. This means information is readily available to your employees allowing them all to make smarter choices, more quickly.
The data-centric manager is the co-ordinator of functions between people and necessary change in this context. They play a unifying role in linking people, systems and data to keep projects moving forwards, efficiently, intelligently and successfully.
Ready to learn more about the role of data-led leadership in helping your business achieve more? Download our Practical Guide to Digitising Business Communication for more useful, practical advice to help you get started.
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