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Development of an Instrument for Measuring the Human Dimensions of Digital

Leaders

Article in Research-Technology Management · April 2022

DOI: 10.1080/08956308.2022.2048588

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Research-Technology Management, Volume 65, 2022 - Issue 3

Development of an Instrument for

Measuring the Human Dimensions of Digital Leaders
Haroon Abbu, Paul Mugge, Gerhard Gudergan, Gerrit Hoeborn, and Alexander Kwiatkowski

Overview: The digital transformation of organizations continues at a frenetic pace. While some
companies have achieved trailblazer status, others are finding it difficult to change and therefore
are lagging. Digital leaders play a pivotal role in this transition because they can increase the
confidence of their organizations behind these often risky and disruptive initiatives. In this article,
we present our efforts to i) separate the practices of digitally developing and digitally mature
organizations―particularly those of their leaders, ii) determine the specific trust-building actions
of digitally mature leaders, iii) develop a scale to measure the human dimensions of digital leaders,
and iv) discuss the future development of a reliable scale and self-assessment tool that digital
leaders can use to assess their own readiness to accelerate digital initiatives.

Keywords: Digital leadership, trust, leadership assessment, digital transformation

Introduction

Digital transformation is more about people than it is about digital technology. It requires
organizational changes that are backed by leadership and driven by radical challenges to corporate
culture. Organizations undergoing digital transformation fall into two categories; “Digitally
Developing” and “Digitally Mature” (Gudergan et al. 2019; Mugge et al. 2020). Digitally mature
organizations are managed differently. Their leaders align human and financial resources with the
strategy, create a collaborative, and nimble development environment, and promote open and
transparent communication (Mugge, et al. 2020). Simply stated, digital transformation requires
leaders to build trust (Mugge, Abbu and Gudergan, 2021, Abbu et al. 2020).
 The major driver for the difference between digitally mature and digitally developing
companies are the human dimensions of its digital leaders. However, there is no established way
of assessing the human attributes of successful digital leaders. Digital leadership contains elements
from authentic leadership, transactional leadership, and transformational leadership; it is multi-
dimensional (Prince, 2018). Eberl and Drews (2021), in their literature review on digital leadership
also called for a practice-oriented, integrating scale for measuring digital leadership. Therefore,
the focus of this research is to develop an instrument for assessing the human dimensions of digital
leaders.

Study and Data Collection

To understand the factors that affect the performance of digital leaders, we interviewed
several successful leaders of digitally mature organizations. We consider them successful based
on their track record of carrying out successful transformations in their companies. Their successes
have been chronicled in the public domain as case studies and success stories. We wanted to hear
directly from them as to what they are doing and their advice to other digital leaders. Our modus
operandi all along has been to help the leaders of digitally developing organizations (the great
majority) catch up to their mature brethren.

To find suitable interviewees, we used the maximum variation strategy of purposeful

sampling (Palinkas et al. 2015). The variation factors were geographic representation, size of the
company, gender, and industry representation. For the latter, particular care was taken not to only
select digitally native, but include more traditional industries (e.g., automotive, agriculture, etc.).
We developed a database of the leaders we wanted to interview; they needed to be associated with
companies of any size, from a micro start-up to corporate conglomerate, in any industry,
headquartered in either the United States or Germany. We made a deliberate attempt to include
female digital leaders; to balance the perspectives and to understand if it is harder for female
leaders to build trust in mostly male-dominated organizations.

We conducted interviews between August and October 2020. A total of 13 semi-structured

interviews were conducted by at least two researchers, both face-to-face and via videoconference.

We asked interviewees the following questions:

1. What is your key theme (main message) for transforming the organization?
 2. What is your organization’s digital strategy and vision?

3. What actions have you taken to achieve your theme?

4. What results have you witnessed to date?

5. What advice do you have for other digital leaders?

We believed this set of questions would not only find out what actions leaders are taking
but more importantly how and why they pursue them.

Each interview was audio recorded with the interviewee’s consent and transcribed for data
analysis. Participation was voluntary and was not remunerated. Three interviewees were women;
ten were men. The interviewees hold various top-management positions: 7 CEOs, 2 business unit
heads developing digital products (BUH), 2 functional heads leading corporate functions (FH),
and 2 chief digital officers (CDO). The details of the interviewees and the industries they represent
are illustrated in Table 1. Together, the digital leaders we interviewed represented companies with
combined revenues of more than $225B and nearly 1.2M employees.

Table 1. Interviewee Positions and Industry Representation

An inductive approach was used to reduce the extensive text data gained from the
interviews (Thomas 2006). The interview transcripts were read several times to identify and code
the categories. In order to identify leadership traits specific to digital transformation, conventional
content analysis was used, which is exploratory, “allowing the categories and names for categories
to flow from the data” (Hsieh and Shannon 2005).
 We based our interpretations solely on what the interviewees told us. We reviewed the
transcripts for direct quotes, analyzed relevant text, and reviewed the final interview report with
the informant to confirm its accuracy. Using content analysis―both automated and manual―we
conceptionally analyzed the presence of certain words, themes, or concepts within the text of our
interviews and then summarized them into manageable code categories. We first coded the text
automatically using software to identify possible categories. We then took the terms that fit the
dimensions and manually searched the interview text to see if the interviewee mentioned them or
implied them. We counted the number of informants mentioning each dimension and created Table
2 to show the results of the content analysis.

Table 2. Results of Content Analysis

Mentioned
# Dimension Search Terms
By

1 Honesty honesty, integrity, openness 7

humility, not self-oriented, accept/give feedback,
2 Humility 6
give me advice, respect for people
courage, deal with blind spots, willing to change,
3 Courage 7
embracing change, freedom of action
4 Ethical AI ethics in AI, fairness, explainability, mitigate bias 4

5 Growth Mindset mindset 7

Transparent
6 agenda, transparent, openness, clear, clarity 7
Agenda
7 Data Focus data, analytics 7
Inspire
8 engage, empower, motivate, get buy-in, desire 7
Engagement
storytelling, visual analytics, talk-about, celebrate
9 Storytelling 5
wins
digital technology, connecting to digital, digital
10 Digital Literacy 7
capabilities, technology company, know-how
11 Positive Attitude positive attitude 5

12 Skills Acquisition skills, digital skills, address skill gaps 8

Knowledge
13 knowledge sharing, knowledge 9
Sharing
style, servant leadership, team, people-first, put
Participative
14 yourself in their shoes, people respect what you 8
Style
inspect
15 Track Record track record, outcomes, results 13
 To provide further context, we have listed some of the quotes from our informants below
and have underlined keywords for illustrative purposes.

“If you, as the leader, do not possess the integrity or have the trust of the team or people, and they
don't take you to be one who fulfills your commitments and big promises—you're going nowhere.”

- CEO of $1.8B business process outsourcing (BPO) company.

“At the end of the day, being inclusive, being transparent, being empowered, being agile is at the
center of an organization that has trust. Inarguably in one of the most technical areas of business
leadership, the softest of skills from a leadership perspective can be the difference-maker”

- CEO of $6B luxury brands company

“As we consider putting the machines to work, we have a responsibility to ensure fairness and to
make sure that we can explain how the model arrives at a recommendation. Fairness has to be a
conscious endeavor, and it's the responsibility of the C-level and the board to know that these are
the models that will drive the next generation of what we do. They have to ask themselves, have
we taken the right and prudent steps to make sure that they are indeed fair?”

- Industry CTO of $75B technology company

“The most successful leaders that I’ve seen have an innate ability to connect the dots—to be
systems thinkers—and can communicate extremely effectively to their team and to their clients. A
digital leader thus also needs to be a good storyteller.”

- Managing Director of $51B management consulting company

“Be Genuinely Interested in Your Employees. I expect absolute transparency and openness. I
encourage employees to speak their minds and share their opinions. I say what fits and what
doesn't fit. And I expect the same from my employees.”

- CEO & founder of an award-winning mechanical engineering family business in

Germany

“If we talk about R&D and their very gifted computational researchers, they may not need help in
algorithm development, nor do they need help in machine-learning modeling—but they may need
help in making sure they have access to the right data. You need to have that dexterity to be able
to affect the right digital outcome. I partner with business leaders, analytic leaders, and technology
leaders to craft an enterprise vision around data. We have to make sure that the internally
generated, as well as externally acquired data, is at the right level of availability, velocity, quality,
and control.”

- CDO of $43B biopharmaceutical company

“Trust has created a much greater willingness to provide relevant data and information to each
other. This enables a more holistic system perspective, which helps us build technical systems that
are needed to increase customer service and product quality.” This type of information-sharing
can drive product optimizations with tangible customer benefit.”

- CEO of energy company & former engineering head of $10B power grid
company

“You need role models and people who have actual experience in digital. Maybe hire some people
from outside your own industry if the industry is not digital yet. In addition to a digital awareness,
it is important to get actual projects done. Make sure to do smaller-scale projects first. In the end,
it is essential for digital leaders not just to talk about digitalization, but also to prove they are able
to deliver results.”

- Director of Strategy of $25B automotive company

Dimensions of Digital Leadership Scale

For each of the 15 dimensions of our proposed digital leadership scale, we provide a
seminal definition based on literature, discuss prior research pertaining to its relevance to digital
leadership, and list existing scales if any. We then provide a working definition to ensure content
validity and applicability and list three items to measure each dimension. Since it is not good
practice to detach items from their original scale context (Kraus and Kreitenweis 2020, p. 230),
existing items from overlapping leadership scales were only considered conceptually while
creating new items for each of the 15 dimensions. Consistent with our prior research, we have
categorized these 15 dimensions under the 4 Cores of Credibility: Integrity, Intent, Capabilities,
and Results (Covey, 2006). Please see Figure 1, Framework and dimensions of the digital
leadership measurement scale.

Digital
Leadership

Character Competency

Integrity Intent Capability Results

Growth Digital
Honesty Track Record
Mindset Literacy

Transparent Positive
Humility
Agenda Attitude

Skills
Courage Data Focus
Acquisition

Inspire Knowledge
Ethical AI
Engagement Sharing

Participative
Storytelling
Style

Figure 1: Framework and dimensions of the proposed digital leadership measurement scale

1. Honesty

Honesty is defined as “the expectancy that the word, promise, verbal or written statement of
another individual or group can be relied upon” (Rotter 1967, p. 651). Honesty is highly valued in
several leadership theories, e.g., servant leadership (Russell and Stone 2002, p. 146). A major
study by IBM showed that role modeling by executives is the most important factor for successful
change initiatives (Jorgensen, Bruehl and Franke 2014, p. 7) and role models must be credible and
embody what they say. Honesty is the most important factor to generate credibility in a leader.
(Kouzes and Posner 2011, p. 7). The measurement of honesty is part of the HEXAGO Personality
Scale (Ashton and Lee 2009) and Satow's B5T scale (Satow 2012). However, for measuring
honesty in the context of digital transformation, we are concerned with the interpersonal
manifestation, especially, how honesty appears through the digital leader and how it contributes to
digital transformation success.

Working Definition: An assessment of the leader’s moral character that connotes positive and
virtuous attributes such as integrity, truthfulness, and straightforwardness. Honesty also
involves being trustworthy, loyal, fair, and sincere.

As a leader of digital initiatives, I ...

Item 1: … publicly address concerns employees have with the digital strategy.

Item 2: … give employees clear answers, even to critical questions.

Item 3: … do my best to talk straight and I expect the same from my employees.

2. Humility

From an interpersonal perspective, Humility “involves regulation of egotism and cultivation

of other-orientation rather than a selfish preoccupation with one’s own needs” (Davis et al., 2017,
p. 4). Leaders manage to build trust through selfless behavior. In the Servant Leadership theory,
the most important task of a good leader is to serve other people (Baggett 1997, p. 21). Humility
is a necessary dimension to understand the true needs of employees first before seeking to be
understood with appropriate intervention measures. This is by no means to say that leaders are no
longer allowed to represent their own interests. Humility implies putting aside one's own opinion
and listening properly to the employees to gain new insights, even if there are differences of
opinion. The measurement components and the effects of humility have been studied extensively
(Nielsen and Marrone 2018) and are also a part of the HEXAGO Personality Scale (Ashton and
Lee 2009). However, we are concerned with the external manifestation of humility by the leader
within business interaction.

Working Definition: An assessment of the leader’s modest or low view of one's own importance,
i.e., their humbleness.

As a leader of digital initiatives, I ...

Item 1: … respect the opinion of our employees, even if it is not the same as mine.

Item 2: …value every contribution of every individual, no matter how big or small it may be.

Item 3: … gratefully accept any feedback both positive, and negative.

3. Courage

Courage is defined as “the ability to act for a meaningful (noble, good, or practical) cause,
despite experiencing the fear associated with perceived threat exceeding the available resources”
(Cooper R Woodard 2004, p. 174). Change requires courage, as change breaks up the deeper and
more extensive old structures. In general, leaders need the courage of the highest order (Sanders
1994, p. 59). An anxious leader tends to ignore the threatening facets of changing circumstances
which in turn can trigger a chain reaction among employees throughout the whole company.
Courage is also a prerequisite for successfully mastering the dimension of honesty mentioned
previously. Employees want leaders who have the courage to be honest especially in difficult and
possibly self-damaging circumstances (Russell and Stone 2002, p. 148). There are comprehensive
measurement constructs for assessing courage (e.g., Woodard and Pury 2007 scale).

Working Definition: An assessment of the leader’s mental or moral strength to venture,

persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.

As a leader of digital initiatives, I ...

Item 1: …change the plan when presented with new, disruptive market realities.

Item 2: …do the right thing for our company even if this could have unpleasant consequences.

Item 3: …pursue the strategy even when I know it will be difficult to achieve.
4. Ethical AI

Recent advances in machine learning and neural networks have pushed artificial intelligence
into the domains of hiring, criminal justice, and health care bringing AI ethics to the forefront of
digital leadership. As promising as machine learning technology is, it can also be susceptible to
unintended biases that require careful planning to avoid (DeBrusk 2018). Ethical leadership
represents shared facets with authentic, spiritual, and transformational leadership such as Altruism,
Integrity, and Role modeling (Brown and Treviño 2006, p. 598). The scales that measure ethics
such as the Ethical Leadership Scale (Brown, Treviño and Harrison 2005) and the Leadership
Virtues Questionnaire (Riggio et al. 2010), lack an ethical technology assessment. Dealing with
ethical concerns related to the application of AI in managerial activities as well as in data usage is
an important topic to address by leaders in the digitalized world (Cortellazzo, Bruni and Zampieri
2019, 17).

Working Definition: The assessment of a leader’s ability to do everything in his or her power to
ensure the results of AI and other technologies employing machine learning models, are fair
and explainable.

As a leader of digital initiatives, I ...

Item 1: … make sure senior management understands the need for building trustworthy AI –
that ensures fairness, accuracy, and meet their privacy and compliance requirements

Item 2. …put processes in place to ensure any human biases do not creep into algorithms and
affect outcomes.

Item3. .... develop and encourage participation in training sessions related to ethics in AI.

5. Growth Mindset

Growth Mindset explores the extent to which people believe they can become smarter if they
work at it. It is based on the belief that “your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through
your efforts” (Dweck 2016). Research shows that individuals with a Growth Mindset develop
important skills for managing change in a professional context, such as more effective problem-
solving strategies, dealing with feedback, and much more (Gottfredson and Reina 2020). In the
context of digital transformation, leaders with a growth mindset look for new opportunities to
realize their visions (Carpenter 2012, p. 22) which require them to focus on creative, innovative as
well as risky tactics (Renko et al. 2012, p. 179). A growth mindset is also important to motivate
one’s own employees. For example, Petrucci and Rivera (2018) and Prince (2018) emphasize the
relevance of a growth mindset for digital leaders in that it encourages employees to be curious,
think alternatively, and expand their knowledge in accordance with "lifelong learning". The growth
mindset scale (Dweck 1999, Dweck 2016) consists of items that focus on the belief that
intelligence has a fluid component, that it can grow. We have adopted this basic idea and changed
it contextually for a business environment.

Working Definition: An assessment of the leader’s desire to tackle new challenges and grow as
a person.

As a leader of digital initiatives, I ...

Item 1: … don’t view failure as a disappointment, but as a learning experience that can lead to
change.

Item 2: … believe that all people, including myself, can change their capabilities to do new
things regardless of where they come from.

Item 3: … accept new challenges, take advantage of feedback, and provide timely feedback to
subordinates.

6. Transparent Agenda

Transparency includes openness, freedom of information, clarity, accuracy, and the timely
release of relevant information (Bernstein 2017, p. 228). It enables employee participation, informs
them of the opportunities and risks about the aspects of digital transformation so that they can form
a rational judgment. This can lead to targeted involvement of employees—a decisive success factor
for digital transformation—significantly reducing the common resistance to change (Wagner
2014, p. 204). Transparency can be used to check whether a leader really stands behind what he
or she is promoting (‘walking the talk’). Employees must be able to witness that leaders do what
they have said they will do (Kouzes and Posner 2011, p. 74). A transparent leadership style
encourages meaningful feedback, which allows for strategic adjustments that otherwise would
have been overlooked (Tardieu et al. 2020, p. 124). The concept of transparency has been
operationalized in prior literature (e.g., Rawlins 2008, Bernstein 2017).

Working Definition: The assessment of a leader's ability to openly share information about the
business strategy with employees. This is needed for collaboration, cooperation and collective
decision making.

As a leader of digital initiatives, I ...

Item 1: … never hide my intentions, I reveal all aspects of our digital strategy to the
organization

Item 2: … make sure the digital strategy is documented and accessible to all stakeholders.

Item 3: … ensure that the benefits of our digital strategy are quantifiable so that everyone
clearly understands them.

7. Data Focus

The focus on data enables improvements in decision-making processes (Weiner, Balijepally

and Tanniru 2015, p. 320) which is necessary for gaining an edge over competitors and for
planning digital transformation measures (Ashwell 2017, p. 393). The ability to process, analyze,
prioritize, and subsequently make decisions on data has become an essential skill to succeed. There
was not a seminal definition or a scale for data focus, but it appears to describe the leadership
behaviors associated with two major digital business processes – business analytics and business
intelligence necessary to transform data into business insights (Pratt and Fruhlinger 2019). Another
reason Data Focus is a key dimension for digital leaders is that while most all companies are
engaged in trying to scale analytics―only a few are truly succeeding at it (Bisson et al. 2018).

Working Definition: The assessment of a leader’s ability to encourage the application of data
and analytics everywhere, including their own decision making.

As a leader of digital initiatives, I ...

Item 1: … use data analytics to drive our major operational and strategic decisions.
Item 2: … trust data more than my intuition.

Item 3: … make sure the right people in their organization have the training and skills necessary
to work with data.

8. Inspire Engagement

This is a central element of transformational leadership and makes a significant contribution

to digital transformation success. Motivation and inspiration have always been pivot skills that any
leader must master (Horner-Long and Schoenberg 2002, p. 779). A central key to this is the ability
to make people feel significant about the company and to avoid active and passive forms of
resistance as much as possible. It is also about the ability to create visions in a participatory manner
because transformative visions are crucial to digital transformation success. It is the task of the
executives to establish the connection between that vision and the employees (Kane et al. 2019).
Researchers have pointed out the lack of consistently accepted conceptualization or a tool to
measure employee engagement (Witemeyer, Ellen and Straub 2013). In the context of the current
study, employee engagement is an attitude towards one’s work in one’s organization, comprising
feelings of vigor, dedication, and absorption; cognitive appraisals of psychological empowerment;
and motivation to act in the service of the organization’s goals.

Working Definition: The assessment of a leader’s ability to stimulate (someone's) interest in or

enthusiasm for doing something.

As a leader of digital initiatives, I ...

Item 1: …let people know that their input matters and that they have the autonomy to develop
and implement new ideas.

Item 2: …create a sense of urgency, enthusiasm and pride at work.

Item 3: …appreciate our willingness to expend the effort necessary to persist in the face of
challenges.

9. Storytelling
 Values and principles cannot make an impact on employees unless they are woven into
emotional reference stories (Merath and Nau 2017, p. 300). Good stories arouse emotions and
visual images and thus have an entertaining and informative effect (Morgan and Dennehy 1997,
p. 495). In this way, the audience—whether a group or an individual—is addressed holistically
both in cognition and emotion (Lippmann, Pfister and Jörg 2019, p. 350). Stories are a highly
efficient way to disseminate information and a transformative vision; they help link the past,
present, and future, create a sense of continuity among employees and make change—especially
radical change—seem doable (Boal and Schultz 2007, p. 419). A good story can be equally
effective in informal word-of-mouth communication between employees. Measuring storytelling
primarily aims for the impact of storytelling (Rossetti and Wall 2017). In our study context, we
are primarily concerned with leaders’ awareness of the need for effective storytelling and their use
in a targeted manner.

Working Definition: The assessment of the leader to inspire employees and gain buy-in.

As a leader of digital initiatives, I ...

Item 1: … Effectively use storytelling to drive the purpose of our digital transformation journey
(at shareholder meetings, to staff, and to the public.)

Item 2. … Constantly reinforce our mission for digital transformation – my story- in daily
happenings as much as possible.

Item3. ....encourage our employees to become storytellers and become ambassadors of change
themselves.

10. Digital Literacy

A deeper understanding of the technological possibilities enables leaders to create an adequate

vision and inspire employees to get involved in the first place (Kane et al. 2019). If these
competencies are lacking, digital leaders must develop such skills and foster them within the team
to efficiently exploit the benefits of digital transformation (Cortellazzo, Bruni and Zampieri 2019,
p. 11). Demonstrating relevant expertise is essential to increase a leader's credibility (Yukl 1998,
p. 199). Although there are scales to measure certain components of digital literacy (Jin et al. 2020,
Carretero, Vuorikari and Punie 2017), they fail to encompass the broad nature of digital literacy
(Chetty et al. 2018, p. 5). Since digital literacy priorities vary from industry to industry, our items
are primarily concerned with the extent to which digital leaders demand and promote digital
literacy in themselves and their employees.

Working Definition: The assessment of a leader’s ability to develop digital competencies within
the leadership team in itself.

As a leader of digital initiatives, I ...

Item 1: … make sure that all of the direct report team have the necessary technology skills to
implement our digital strategy.

Item 2: … regularly seek outside resources (advice of thought leaders, joint research projects,
partnerships, executive education, etc.) to help maintain the organization’s digital talents.

Item 3: … make sure the entire leadership team is knowledgeable with the strategic and
operational benefits of our digital technologies.

11. Positive Attitude

A Positive Attitude is necessary to express emotionalizing reactions such as recognition,

gratitude, and praise. Leaders with positive attitudes are shown to be more resilient, socially
integrated, and high-performing, leading to increased helpfulness, flexibility, empathy, and
creativity (Creusen, Eschemann and Johann 2010, p. 19). Through positive attitudes and a positive
leadership style, leaders have the opportunity to elevate their employees' confidence, commitment,
and well-being long-term (Liu, Siu and Shi 2010, p. 456). The psychometric scales in this space
are more character-orientated, but more important for the digital leader is how this positivity
manifests itself in the business context.

Working Definition: The assessment of a leader’s ability to carry themselves like champions,
and purposefully show their positivity in the way they behave and communicate.

As a leader of digital initiatives, I ...

Item 1: … consistently advocate the best interests of our company.

Item 2: … take it on myself to be accountable.

Item 3: … am committed to the success of our company.

12. Skills Acquisition

UNESCO (2018) defines digital skills as “a range of abilities to use digital devices,
communication applications, and networks to access and manage information. They enable people
to create and share digital content, communicate and collaborate, and solve problems for effective
and creative self-fulfillment in life, learning, work, and social activities at large”. Identifying,
attracting, and motivating people with these ever-evolving skill sets is of paramount importance
to digital leaders. To thrive in the connected economy and society, digital skills must also function
together with other abilities such as strong literacy and numeracy skills, critical and innovative
thinking, complex problem solving, ability to collaborate, and socio-emotional skills. Digital skills
need to be complemented with soft skills. Agility, creativity, teamwork, ability to learn will
endure; they are the type of jobs that are not easily automated―where human reasoning is
required.” (Maurer 2019).

Working Definition: The assessment of a leader’s ability to influence digital talent acquisition
and development for the organization.

As a leader of digital initiatives, I ...

Item 1: … am personally involved in our efforts to recruit digital talents to the organization.

Item 2: … influence efforts to retrain and rebalance the organization’s digital skills.

Item 3: … have initiated active programs with local colleges and universities to recruit digitally
talented people.

13. Knowledge Sharing

An international study of 1700 CEOs found that outperforming organizations have leaders who
create a culture of openness, connectivity, and the highest level of collaboration in the digital world
(Berman and Korsten 2014, p. 37). Developing a system that enables knowledge dissemination
from an individual to the group is the most effective way to spread knowledge and expertise
throughout the organization (Boe and Torgersen 2018, p. 11). In the literature, there are two
primary approaches to measure knowledge sharing in organizations, perception-based methods
and activity-based methods (Long, Siau and Howell 2007). In our assessment, we are primarily
concerned with the role of the leader, who must actively promote knowledge sharing for successful
digital transformation.

Working Definition: The assessment of a leader’s ability to enable access to knowledge and
improve learning.

As a leader of digital initiatives, I ...

Item 1: … insist we share our knowledge, particularly with other departments/organizations

struggling with digital transformation.

Item 2: … give every employee the opportunity to present “what they are learning/have
learned” to the rest of the organization.

Item 3: … have implemented “safety nets” that encourage experimentation and explore the
new knowledge.

14. Participative Style

Digital leaders are expected to strive for a leadership style in which they not only allow their
team to participate, but also participate in team activities themselves (Schwarzmüller et al. 2018,
p. 128) and by doing so, they gain and maintain trust within their team (Carte, Chidambaram and
Becker 2006, p. 331). Pentland (2012) showed that team-oriented leaders actively engage people
in short, high-energy conversations; they are democratic with their employees' time, communicate
with everyone equally, and ensure that all team members get a chance to contribute. They engage
in “stimulated but focused listening” and listen as much or more than they talk and are usually
very engaged with whoever they are listening to. Teaming leadership is also about creating open
spaces, giving team members freedom to choose their efforts, and motivating them to voluntarily
make a positive effort to complete tasks (Rahmani, Roels and Karmarkar 2018, p. 9). Servant
leadership emphasizes "increased service to others; a holistic approach to work; promoting a sense
of community; and the sharing of power in decision making" (Spears, Greenleaf and Covey 2002,
p. 4). Several measurement scales have examined the effects of participative, team-oriented
leadership and organizational citizenship behavior relationships (e.g., Hayat Bhatti et al., 2019).

Working Definition: The assessment of a leader’s ability to develop a collaborative and inclusive
way to approach problems and opportunities.

As a leader of digital initiatives, I ...

Item 1: … require that we celebrate “small wins”, as well as major accomplishments, to motivate
employees.

Item 2: … prefer “rolling up my sleeves” and working directly with the development teams.

Item 3: … make time for people who have questions.

15. Track Record

This dimension reflects a transactional facet of digital leadership, but this time not in relation
to the people being led, but to the leader themselves. This critical reflection enables a down-to-
earth self-assessment—perhaps the leader needs to further build competencies, deal with new
disruption, or improve digital literacy. This dimension makes it clear that successful
transformation is also always about measurable results, whether positive or negative (Prince 2018,
p. 28). Several business results metrics could be included here, i.e., improved outcomes, increased
customer experience, etc. Rather than listing them out, we chose to keep the measurement at a
higher level: did the digital initiative produce meaningful results?

Working Definition: The assessment of the leader’s digital initiatives to produce meaningful
results.

As a leader of digital initiatives, I ...

Item 1: … changed an aspect of business using digital methods.

Item 2. … significantly reduced the cycle time or operational cost of the business.

Item 3. … created an overall better customer experience.

Key Lessons for Leaders
We hypothesized and found support that the human dimensions of digital leaders are the essence
of digital transformation success. We advise leaders to focus on these 15 key dimensions of digital
leadership. First, building trust and credibility are at the core of effective digital leadership.
Credible leaders walk the talk, and employees learn by observing their leaders. Secondly,
employees should be at the center of your digital strategy. Align them with business goals and
clearly communicate your plan and vision for the company to them. Listen to your employees,
understand what they're thinking, and integrate employee feedback into your communications and
operations strategy. This will help in building an innovative, transparent, and inclusive culture.
Thirdly and more importantly, digital leaders must make conscious efforts to ensure
trustworthiness in the use of digital technologies such as AI and ML. They must ensure they are
used in a way that’s fair, respects individual’s privacy, and benefits society in general.

Future Research
We identified 15 human dimensions of digital leadership that are key to digital
transformation success. Given the urgency and importance of digital transformation and the critical
role digital leaders play in successful execution, we are currently working on the following
initiatives:

1. Develop a survey instrument to measure these 15 dimensions on a five-point

Likert scale. Administer the survey to digital leaders. Using statistical methods (e.g.,
principal component analysis), develop a statistically valid and reliable scale that
measures key dimensions of digital leadership.

2. Based on the above, create a user-friendly self-assessment tool and make it

available for free to anyone leading a digital initiative – be it at the project, function,
business unit, or company level. We emphasize the term self-assessment because it is
intended to provide leaders inspiration to reflect and improve aspects of their leadership
based on science―and not, based on somebody else’s expectations of them.

Transformations are hard and digital transformations are even harder. They require cultural
and behavioral changes such as calculated risk-taking, increased collaboration, and customer-
centricity (McKinsey 2018). Digital leaders must be “adaptable”. This mindset “enables a digital
leader to continually update his or her knowledge stores to account for changes in technology and
avoid obsolescence. Leaders can replenish their knowledge stores through formal continuing
education, in-house training, or any of an abundance of online programs” (Kane et al. 2019). We
believe the self-assessment tool and self-training aids are steps in the right direction to build the
digital leadership capabilities required for digital transformation success.

Limitations
The dimensions presented should be checked for their distinctiveness. Within the research
discussions, for example, it emerged that Storytelling can certainly be understood as a sub-item of
Inspire Engagement. Measuring character traits admittedly is difficult, especially since the
measurements are mostly self-reported questionnaires. As a reflexive assessment, such a
measurement fulfills the criterion of practical relevance and can be classified as useful.
Nevertheless, a supplementary review and discussion of presented dimensions by one’s own
employees is recommended to increase objectivity and usefulness. Additionally, the inductive
reasoning approach used is limited as it begins with our observation of the role of digital leadership
in digital transformation success. Our observations are based on set of interviews, yet important
factors might have been overlooked. Further research should focus on quantitative studies to
investigate the aspects found in this study― its intercorrelations, and their relevance depending on
industry and company demographics.

Conclusion
In this paper, we presented a prescriptive assessment for leaders in digital transformation by
identifying the human dimensions required to successfully lead a digital transformation. In line
with the motto "reflection enables insight for improvement," the assessment tool is intended to
provide leaders inspiration for improving their leadership style based on science. We believe a
serious engagement with the human trust dimensions we identified can be a strong impulse for
leaders to critically reflect on themselves and their own behavior. In addition, more in-depth
measurements were referred to for each dimension in order to investigate any deficits that may
have been uncovered. The overarching insight we gained is that the interviews we conducted were
based on a profound frame of reference by the selected individuals on the importance of human
dimensions and trust to lead a digital transformation.
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