The Responsibilities of Managers in the Digital Age

In the digital age, managers play an essential role in navigating technological transformations and their impacts on the organization. Faced with technologies supported by Artificial Intelligence such as the Big Data, the robots And the digitalization of the customer experience, their responsibilities are expanding to incorporate new skills and perspectives. Here is an overview of these responsibilities, along with the key skills needed to successfully carry out these transformations.

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1. Mastering Big Data: Interpretation and Security

Today, the exploitation of company data is the most relevant channel to allow its evolution on the market. The Big Data is transforming the way businesses collect, store, and use data. Managers need to go beyond pure analysis to derive oriented synthesis and interpret data strategically. Raw data is no longer enough: it is crucial to transform this information into usable knowledge to guide decisions.

• Responsibilities of managers :
  • Guarantee the security data collected, both to protect sensitive information and to ensure its integrity.
  • Develop an ability to interpret data consistently to inform business strategies.
• Key skills :
  • Synthesis and interpretive skills : moving from mass data to a clear vision.
  • Cybersecurity knowledge : understand the basics to protect data and guarantee its reliability.

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2. Robots and Automation: Focusing on Added Value

In the age of Artificial Intelligence, by robot, we mean not a metal humanoid as imagined in 20th century science fiction (!) , but any machine that performs tasks in place of the individual. The introduction of robots and automation is redefining the role of humans in business. While robots take on repetitive tasks, managers are responsible for refocusing humans on activities that high added value, by becoming more coaches than simple supervisors.

• Responsibilities of managers :
  • Distinguish between tasks that can be automated and those that require human intervention.
  • Encourage a culture ofinnovation with an emphasis on human potential to improve processes and services.
• Key skills :
  • Support capacity : go from “what” to “how” to guide teams.
  • Focusing on added value : focus on irreplaceable human skills, such as creativity and adaptability.

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3. Customer Experience: From Transversality to Scenarization

Customer experience is more important than ever in a digital context. Customer expectations are changing, and businesses must not only meet, but also anticipate, these expectations. The mission of managers is to move from an organization in silos to an approach. transversal, where the priority is the fluidity of the customer experience and innovation in interactions.

• Responsibilities of managers :
  • Facilitate the transversality between the various departments to optimize the customer experience.
  • Building consistent customer journeys using the screenwriting to anticipate customer needs and expectations.
• Key skills :
  • Process scripting : knowing how to create engaging and consistent customer journeys.
  • Transversal vision : be able to break internal silos to make collaboration more fluid.

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4. Intuitive and Relational Skills: The Human at the Heart of Leadership

Managers must now develop a intuitive leadership and relational to guide their teams in uncertain and sometimes paradoxical contexts. Knowledge and expertise are more essential than ever, but they are no longer enough. In the digital age, the ability to listen, understand and guide is crucial, especially when the issues are complex and interconnected.

• Responsibilities of managers :
  • To listen to the needs of their employees to support them in their development.
  • Manage the paradoxes of the digital age, where the goals of performance, innovation and corporate culture must coexist harmoniously.
• Key skills :
  • Empathy and a sense of service : understand the needs of teams and respond to them in a personalized way.
  • Curiosity about diversity : knowing how to adapt and integrate varied perspectives to strengthen collective intelligence.

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5. Cognitive Know-How: Ease in Complexity

And where does the importance of expertise as well as procedures lie then? As businesses adopt digital operating models, managers need to demonstrate cognitive flexibility and be comfortable with complexity. This includes an ability to manage paradoxes, learn collaboratively, and interpret information in a multi-dimensional context.

• Responsibilities of managers :
  • Encourage a culture of collaboration and continuous learning within the teams.
  • Establish processes that facilitate knowledge sharing and innovation.
• Key skills :
  • Network modeling : understand and adapt structures to promote collaboration and process scripting.
  • Collaborative learning : encourage teams to share their knowledge for better decision-making.

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6. Choosing your role

Intuitive, relational, cognitive skills, who can claim to master all 3? In the end, it would be wanting to be stronger than the machine alone. It was 25 years ago that Gary Kasparov, the world chess champion at the time, lost to a computer for the first time. And the gap between human and artificial intelligence has continued to widen ever since, at least rationally.

Only the community allows a complexity of interactions capable of creating something else. A unique, adaptive, creative added value. The era of the charismatic solitary leader is over. Those who want to risk it in some countries are forced to cut off Internet access to maintain their position in a sustainable way. And to use force or brainwashing. Two options that will not allow your business or yourself to evolve in today's economic world and its requirements.

• How to use complexity and navigate the digital age :
  • Choose the role that best suits your aspirations, your skills, your environment. And define it as your central positioning.
  • Surrounding yourself consciously responsible people who have roles complementary to yours.
  • Learning to collaborate together in order to use artificial intelligence and digital resources.
• The 4 key roles that you can choose as your place and your added value powerhouse :
  • Leadership role : strategic role, based on intuition, intended to sense and indicate new paths to be followed by the collective.
  • Management role : conceptual role, based on the cognitive, intended to structure services by integrating agility needs.
  • Expertise role: a service role for employees and customers, based on relationships, intended to optimize the use of the company's knowledge and services.
  • Coaching role: transformational role, based on collaboration, intended to allow individuals and groups to take ownership of company developments.

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Conclusion: Redefining the Role of the Manager in the Digital Age through Self-Leadership

In the digital age, the role of managers goes well beyond organizing, supervising or managing projects. They are the pillars of support of their teams, the guarantors of human added value And the customer experience architects. Their success depends on their ability to interpret data, facilitate innovation, and support employees in a constantly changing environment.

By integrating these new skills, managers can face the challenges of digitalization and transform these developments into opportunities for their organization. It is a genuine balance between technical, cognitive and relational skills which allows managers to meet the requirements of the digital age while placing people at the heart of their actions.

La major difficulty is not simply an evolution of roles to be accepted and implemented. It lies in the fact that these do not replace the more traditional roles of an executive. They are added to it. Hence the endless race of managers today, who often exhaust themselves meeting all requirements. It's just not possible. Ni quantitatively, by the time required by each of these responsibilities. Ni qualitatively, as the skills required to deal with them are multiple and sometimes antagonistic.

Without awareness and taking a step back, the race is lost in advance. The only way is to know how to choose the roles in which you will be able to bring added value, and to know how to surround yourself for the roles that you cannot assume yourself. It is one of the keys to the Self-Leadership journey to lead to this awareness. And to the decision-making that allows it to be put in place, in the mutual interest of everyone and of the organization.

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Article based on research conducted on the evolution of managers' roles in the face of digital technology:

Mercier JY. (2018), Impacts of Digitalization and New Skills, A call for digital lifelong learning, Digital Switzerland

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