HOW A NEW KIND OF LEADERSHIP ENABLES DIGITAL TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE FINANCIAL SECTOR
Case: Digital leadership
The transition from traditional banking to competitive digital enterprise in the financial sector requires a new kind of leadership.
The financial industry is accelerating digitally. Banks are also fully affected by the impact of digitisation. In order to be able to cope with emerging FinTech start-ups as well, traditional banks need to transform themselves into digital businesses. This requires different structures, work processes, and a new style of leadership.
Managers at banks are an important part of the change process. They embody the transformation and are a role model for the team. This means that a traditional bank such as our client needs to encourage its leaders to adopt a new mindset and new skills.
We have set up a digital development process for the leadership team of the bank, from ‘Make sense’ via ‘Make it real’ to ‘Make it happen’ to make the digital transformation a success.
For ‘Make sense’, we made sure that the whole leadership team understands the ‘why’ of their bank’s transformation: the purpose of their organisation within the digital change, as well as their personal role in the change process. This is mainly about developing a growth mindset and learning to appreciate the same mindset in others.
With ‘Make it real’, we focused on developing the transformation skills of the leaders. We offered them tailor-made tools and taught how to apply them in practice.
Make it happen’ makes real change possible. Instead of just learning new skills, digital leaders also need to embody them through new attitudes and behaviours in the workplace. It is hereby important that everyone is intrinsically motivated to participate in the process.
We have used the following means to achieve this:
Make sense
- 1 day kick-off with the leadership team, including company-specific digital workshops
- Agile Leadership Scan, an assessment of 27 transformation competencies in five clusters, with a personal feedback interview
Make it real
- Personalized online learning path, including preparation and follow-up materials and exercises during and after the training course
- 5x ½ attendance training, with a focus on the development of practical skills
- Exercises and challenges at work as a follow-up to training
Make it happen
- Nudges: performance contest and inspiring online content
- 5x ½ day trainer hotline
- Regular follow-up sessions, the first three with a Pawlik trainer as moderator.
Impact after 6 months
At the beginning of the programme we measured a number of predefined KPIs. After six months we did this again. The differences:
- Better ambassadorship of the bank’s digital transformation process (measured via NPS)
- Higher workplace satisfaction among leaders and employees
- Less ambiguity and fear of transformation among leaders and employees
- More self-confidence among executives
- Better relationship between leaders and employees
- A large proportion of participants reported personal growth
Conclusion: the involvement of leaders and employees has increased significantly during the transformation process.
