Digital Leadership Skills and Associations with Psychological Well-Being.

Holger Pfaff,Sabrina Zeike,Lara Lindert,Katherine Bradbury

doi:10.3390/ijerph16142628

Abstract

Due to increasing digitalisation, today’s working world is changing rapidly and provides managers with new challenges. Digital leadership is an important factor in managing these challenges and has become a key concept in the discussion about what kinds of skills managers need for digital transformation. The main research question our study explored was if digital leadership is associated with psychological well-being in upper-level managers. Based on a qualitative pilot study and relevant literature, we developed a new scale for digital leadership in managers. We conducted an online survey with a sample of 368 upper-level managers from a large German ICT-company. Using a stepwise logistic regression analysis, potential effects of digital leadership on psychological well-being (WHO-5) were analysed. Logistic regression analyses showed that better skills in digital leadership were significantly associated with higher well-being. Results also showed that gender, age and managerial experience had no effect in our model. Our study provides a valuable insight into the association between digital leadership and well-being in managers. However, further research is necessary to validate the newly developed scale for digital leadership and to confirm a causal effect in the relationship between digital leadership and well-being.

Highlights

Companies in all industries are increasingly becoming digitalised and re-organised into new forms of digital organisations
During the literature review process, we found that there are various terms for digital literacy and digital leadership, which makes it challenging to present a bigger picture of previous research
The results show that better skills in digital leadership are significantly associated with higher psychological well-being (p = 0.000, Odds ratios (OR) = 3.11, 95% confidence intervals (CI) = 1.93–4.99)

Summary

Introduction

Companies in all industries are increasingly becoming digitalised and re-organised into new forms of digital organisations. Digital transformation is rapidly and fundamentally changing existing businesses and it is widely acknowledged that companies that miss the trend of digitalisation today will be in the future slower, less flexible and less competitive than digital pioneers [1]. Previous research has shown that digital transformation has fundamental effects on businesses, societies and individuals [1,2,3,4,5]. Technological development and job redesign continue to change work in many ways [6]. Digitalisation may, in this context, change the nature of work as well as job demands and resources [7].

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion