Technological Innovation

As a group we have decided to discuss innovation as it pertains to leadership. When looking at the transformational map we have discovered five major keys related to innovation which are business model innovation, innovation for social benefit, innovation systems, technological innovation, and government innovation. After performing extensive research on each of these categories we have ultimately decided to focus on technological innovation as we believe that it may be one of the most impactful influencers on leaders moving forward. As we know, we are in an age of growing technology and we are being forced to adapt as we move forward, so we figured that we should research the ways in which these technological innovations may have an impact on our futures. The main topics that we have chosen to discuss are Human Enhancement, Entrepreneurship, Digital Communication, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, and the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The first thing that traditionally comes to mind when we think about human enhancement is the physical enhancement of one’s body simply by using dietary supplements or anabolic steroids to encourage muscle growth. However, with regards to technological innovation; Human Enhancement is essentially the concept of applying science and technologies to expand cognitive and physical human capacities (AAAS, 2018). This is going to be majorly impactful on the role of leadership in the future as human enhancement is driven to improve humans’ all-round capabilities.

Some may argue that leadership skills are something that individuals may be born with, and in their lives tend to strengthen their leadership capabilities by working on things such as communication, charisma, and problem-solving methods. With Human Enhancement technologies however, there are ways in which this sort of enhancement can be planted into someone’s body. There have been cases developing over the years with examples of scientists implanting artificial retinas to give blind patients partial sight or inserting a chip into a paralyzed man’s brain that is linked to a computer to generate partial movement which just goes to show the capabilities of such human enhancement tools. Another very important development that has been created over the years is what is known as the CRISPR; which is clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, that is meant to improve scientists’ ability to accurately and efficiently edit the human genome (Masci, 2016).

With developments and creations like the previously mentioned CRIPSR, humans’ leadership capabilities may be increased by a significant amount as these scientists may ultimately have the power to create ideal leaders based on their abilities to systematically and critically think through situations that may best suit their subordinates (Masci, 2016). Although this may be a positive thing, critics about Human Enhancement methods and technologies say that they can potentially do more harm than good as people who have been able to get the enhancement done may lack empathy and look down at those who have chosen not to do it or may not have been able to afford it. As we know, empathy is one of the most important traits of a leader which is something that must be taken into consideration by these scientists working on the projects. There must be some way for them to insert a gene that boosts human empathy to improve someone’s leadership skills.

Altogether, human enhancement may have a positive impact on leadership in the future as these technologies have the ability to increase someone’s charisma, critical thinking, and communication skills which is ultimately some of the most important characteristics of a leader.

Artificial intelligence and robotics hold the potential of being a transformational technology in any organization (Moulds, 2018). There is a growing concern of whether the robots fitted with artificial intelligence will replace people in the workplace and their impact on the leadership of an organization. It is evident that future leaders will need an extra set of skills to be able to run the organization effectively with robots fitted with artificial intelligence on board. This is because artificial intelligence and robotics in an organization will render some skills irrelevant and create a need for future leaders having new skills. On the other hand, artificial intelligence and robotics hold the potential of unlocking discoveries that haven’t been conceived yet.

As artificial intelligence and robotics are being installed and integrated into more operations in an organization, the primary components of leadership must be redefined across all levels and overall strategy (Moulds, 2018). Organization leaders will need new skills to make strategies. One of the main skill future leaders need is quick-decision making. Future leaders need this skill to run an organization smoothly since the robots will require new instructions within a short period. Also, future leaders will be required to have additional information technology skills rather than common business administration skills. This tech management skills will enable managers to understand technology and utilize its opportunities and challenges within workplace roles, data management, career skills, and development.

Future leaders also need to have diverse team management skills. They will need to learn to build cultures in a non-traditional work environment where there are fewer humans and numerous robots and automated systems. Even though future leaders may not hold these technical roles solely, they will need to be aware of what artificial intelligence and robotics are and how they can help their employees understand the roles.

Entrepreneurship is arguable the most central initiative of economic value creation including new startups and regenerating force with established companies. Entrepreneurship is also a way to discover opportunities like activating resources to utilize and unleashing the forces of creative destruction to transform existing industries (Arias, Skibsted, De Cuyper, & Ziskind, 2018). Another key element of entrepreneurship is becoming entrepreneurial results in bringing markets back into competitive equilibrium. People are driven to maximize individual economic utility and act opportunistically, changing and rethinking demands and rethink what entrepreneurship could become in the future (Arias, Skibsted, De Cuyper, & Ziskind, 2018).

There are two specific types of entrepreneurship talked about in the article, 2018 State of digital transformation. The first type is traditional entrepreneurship which is when someone creates and innovates to build something of recognized value (Eaves & McGuire, 2018). Within this type, entrepreneurs are more motivated by financial gain and seek personal or shareholder benefit. There is also higher level of self-interest and of drive and determination while having lower levels of social conscience. On the other side, the other type is called social entrepreneurship. In this type of entrepreneurship, people seek to maximize social value or social capital from non-profit pursuits to solve social problems (Eaves & McGuire, 2018). Within social entrepreneurship, people are motivated by social gain and are highly innovative. There is lower levels of self-interest while having higher levels of risk taking and social conscience.

Talking about entrepreneurship and problems at a global level, as entrepreneurs people need build, evolve, and more importantly challenge current thinking. Entrepreneurs need to re-examine assumptions and opinions of current systems and model that establish entrepreneurship. Getting entrepreneurship to address global problems can be complex and become interconnected. There needs to be an understanding of global and local ecosystems to create, improve, and sustain current and future endeavors (Eaves & McGuire, 2018).

Leadership within an entrepreneurial business work place is different and requires more than just “leading” people. According to our textbook Nick Petrie conducted a study on leadership development and said, “There is a transition occurring from the old paradigm in which leadership resided in a person or role, to a new one in which leadership is a collective process that is spread throughout networks of people” (DuBrin, 2014). Leadership is not a one-person job, there is no leadership without anyone to inspire and motivate, it’s all about collaboration.

There is also the issue of leadership versus management. A manager can lead, and a leader manages, but a leader deals more with interpersonal relationships and are more visionary. Another question is what roles do leaders play in entrepreneurial situations? The answer is there are many different roles to play and combinations roles is key to being successful in different entrepreneurial situations. Some roles can include being a negotiator, a coach and motivator, team builder, team player, entrepreneur, and more. Finally, the concept of transformational leadership is important in entrepreneurship. A definition from the textbook is a transformational leader is one who brings about positive, major changes in an organization(DuBrin, 2014). A transformational leader needs to be visionary, and to be a successful leadership in entrepreneurship, having a vision and a purpose is key.

The fourth industrial revolution is what defines the digitized world we live in that is specifically marked by the advance and the development of technology. Through the cyber-physical systems, the Internet of Things and the Internet of Systems this revolution has changed the perception of things such as ways of life, organizations and how people relate to each other in hope to make life easier. According to Bawany, this fourth revolution is what enables new technologies to evolve combining physical, digital and biological worlds and so forth allows them to impact all industries, disciplines and economies (Bawany, 2017). Bernard Marr, in his article for Forbes, insisted that the promise of the fourth industrial revolution is to raise income levels of the world’s population alongside with the improvement of the quality of life through a more connected and smarter world (Marr, 2018).

However, organizations who are seeking success or those who are willing to maintain their place in the market should be aware of the impact and changes that the fourth industry revolution might bring in order to prepare themselves and anticipate the challenges, or even threats, that may face them in both the short and the long run. That is why Leaders, as it is their role, must keep in mind these challenges and bring necessary changes to their organization to reshape it so that it will conform with the new way of doing business as applied by this industry revolution. For this to happen, Sattar Bawany argued that leaders must release themselves from the traditional linear thinking as well as the crises that demands all their attention. More than that, he also added that leaders must always be sensitive towards how technology is affecting our economic, social, cultural and human environments (Bawany, 2017). In addition, Bernard Marr not only agrees with Bawany and that in fact leaders must always be aware of the impact of technology development, but he also suggested that organizations must all try harder to be smarter and connected by investing more on their data analyzing capabilities and technical infrastructure alongside with developing them (Marr, 2018).

Digital Communication is a tool for communicating with one another. It is a digitally encoded signals which is transferred electronically from sender to the receivers. Some examples of digital systems which we use in daily life are mobile phones, internet and so on.

In today’s world communication without digital nature can’t be thought of. It allows connecting each other more conveniently than ever before was. We spend so much time on internet that texting, and all the communications are being done on phone or through social website. Most of the people are nowadays live super active in digital world. There are various apps which has helped in communication with family, friends and business clients and coworkers. This has brought up freedom of communication in the world.

Digital world is constantly changing. For example, few years and until today emails were one of the most used for communication but it’s been taken over by social media apps and text messages. Number of people growing IM (instant messaging) are growing every day. It is growing in such a way that the day is coming that it will overtake emails. Even businesses these days use SMS to notify their customers and grow broader.

Organizations that are more willing to utilize digital leadership usually keeping in mind for communication, creating new ideas and will to explore new process. Digital leaders always find the ways with Information technology to be more competitive on organization level. This surely is helping to be responsible to what consumer wants and changing the business necessities.

In the beginning phase of Facebook, only pictures could be shared now is the videos and soon it is going to have virtual reality. In the never-ending development of the digital communication system, “The future of communication is going to be telepathy”. (Mark Zuckerberg). A person will just be communicating with thinking of something in their mind and his friends will be immediately be able to know it.

Overall today is the era of digitalized world. Business leaders will need to be constantly updated about the new applications and gadgets. By utilizing new technologies, two of the core things: 1. Communicating and 2. Acting appropriate to the situation is going to be a lot convenient and effective in the fast-changing business environment.

Since the age that we live in is one that relies heavily on technology, it is essential to look at the future through the lenses of technology and come up with a suitable way forward for the future of business. The future has prospects of technological involvement and thus the need to have all leaderships conversant with technology for the future of business transactions.

We found that it is necessary to consider the application of science and technology for the expansion of cognitive and physical human capabilities. This is expected to enhance the aptitude of humans in their roles as leaders in the future. Enhancement also hopes to achieve the transfer of intrinsic leadership qualities in people that did not have these inherent qualities. This dream gives scientists the power to create an ideal leader with all-around capabilities.

Artificial intelligence, on the other hand, has raised legitimate concerns about the possibility of it to replace human labor in the workforce. Scientists have prospected on the possible benefits of robots with artificial intelligence, but people are still skeptical about the whole matter. The prospects of the future look to take technical tasks away from managers and delegate them to robots, which might be a viable option on the face of it but how about considering an actual human being for the same task.

Further, in entrepreneurial entities leadership is considered as a job for all the members of the collaborating business people. The future is also looking into the vision and purpose of leadership as the critical aspects of administration. Innovative technological leadership of entrepreneurship inspires transformative leadership. The future of business is in the revolutionization of the existing systems and the inception of a digitized world, in which the prospects of business are higher, and the output will be higher even as the quality of production increases. In the new age, communication is digitized and simplified that a person does not need to be physically present to receive correspondence — efficient and quicker communication guarantees optimum productivity. The technological age of business comes with plenty of advantages and disadvantages that must be considered when employing any leadership style.