It’s no secret that technology is affecting all facets of our lives. Social media has affected how organizations attract new customers. Smartphones have put the internet at our fingertips, which has changed the way we communicate, how we access information, and even how we order lunch. But, how will it affect leadership?

metaBeratung, a Hogan Distributor in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, is staying at theforefront of this issue as it is hugely impactful to the global workforce. Organizational landscapes have changed and continue to change. Therefore, what it takes to be an effective leader has also changed. metaBeratung, in conjunction with IMD Business School, recently examined the qualities and competencies that translate to effective leadership in today’s workforce.

Agile Leadership in an Age of Digital Disruption

In 2017, metaBeratung became an official partner of IMD Business School in Switzerland, and conducted a study that revealed why leaders need to adapt their approach to leadership.

“This is a win-win collaboration for us,” says Nicole Neubauer, managing director of metaBeratung Switzerland. “On the one hand, will we be working together on joint research, on the other, we are able to offer IMD executive programs to our clients based on individual development needs. A perfect match.”

Digital Disruption Demands Agile Leaders 

How we approached IMD? Prof. Mike Wade and his team at the Center for Digital Business Transformation (an IMD Lausanne Business School, Switzerland and Cisco initiative) researches and educates organizations to lead in digitally disrupted times. His book ‘The Digital Vortex’ sheds light on how digital disruption is redesigning industries.

So far, no one had looked at changes at the individual level, so the metaBeratung team wanted to shed more light on the individual leadership component of digital disruption. Jointly with Prof. Wade and his team, metaBeratung started interviewing and surveying more than 1,000 executives globally. Running the qualitative interviews, was very interesting for all of us; while some organizations were already well prepared with regards to digitization, others were not at all. This March, the joint research was published at executive forums in Switzerland as well as in Germany (Frankfurt and Munich). With more than 80 executives in each location, it proved once again that ‘agile leadership’ is a hot topic. Both Prof. Mike Wade and Rainer Neubauer presented results.

Now, Taking Results to the Next Level

metaBeratung then approached Hogan Assessments on collaborating together to design a customized report to predict agile leadership around the competencies we identified in our joint research study. Hogan will carry out a validation study and the report will be ready for production in July 2017 and available to all distributors/resellers. Very exciting news – stay tuned!

About metaBeratung

metaBeratung is a Hogan Distributor 2005 in Germany, Switzerland and Austria since 2005. The agile team of 12 (business psychologists, marketing and sales people) is located in Düsseldorf, Zurich and Vienna. Rainer Neubauer, managing director Germany/Austria, has been a PhD student with Robert Hogan back in the day…the main focus of our work is supporting organizations in the area of high potential identification, delivering Hogan Feedbacks, running management audits and certification workshops.

And, we’re hiring! So, if you know someone in your network (senior business psychologist), contact nicole.neubauer@metaberatung.com.