By Juan Rio Salvador LinkedIn| Twitter |Rioxa Consulting  

Blockchain technology is giving us the opportunity to flatten hierarchical organizational structures, improve communication and foster collaboration. I believe that effective leadership is about creating and executing a vision by inspiring others to contribute to it. I also think that to be effective leaders we need to nurture collaboration and an empowerment-based culture.

Blockchain technology is disrupting global business models and strategies by reducing bureaucracy, increasing collaboration and decentralizing authority. As a result, leadership will be more based on trust and a common purpose.

Leaders Can Become More Human Centric Thanks to Blockchain Technology

Blockchain’s decentralisation of decision-making and the flattening of management structures will transform leadership in the coming years. It will empower leaders and teams to share knowledge, and improve communication at all levels, not only top-down.

We need to invest time and resources in upskilling ourselves and our teams to benefit from a human centric implementation of the technology. The focus should be on coaching, development and on high value tasks that require creativity and social interaction.

Leaders need to reconsider their role and establish strategic priorities to automate management tasks and smarter key performance indicators (KPIs). This reduction of administrative work will allow leaders to focus on strategic transformation, innovation and anticipation of changes.

From my experience on business transformation and digital programmes implementation, agile teams and reactions to change are not enough in the current environment. A transformation strategy should be about disrupting and reinventing companies with new business models based on a vision for the future. This is riskier but empowers and inspires people to maintain a culture of collaboration and continuous growth.

Leadership is All About Trusting Others and Inspiring Trust

Trust is key to create successful cooperation between employees and leaders. Trust depends on engagement and open collaboration. To be effective leaders we need to be people-oriented and technically savvy to empower others to work actively towards strategic goals.

In my opinion blockchain technology will increase trust at all levels; it is a decentralised and transparent system with specific parameters. Trust is supported by peer-to-peer transactions without the intervention of managers or leaders. This will create a transition towards leadership-as-a-service: leading employees and teams but inspiring them by service. LaaS – Leadership as a Service is a hands-on model that enables organizations to streamline and future-proof their business by helping individuals and teams to succeed.

Blockchain technology will be disrupting traditional business strategies and leadership by decentralising information and authority to be more agile and collaborative. This will alter the structure, norms and hierarchy of organizations by creating new trust-based practices to manage and sustain consensus.

I agree with Simon Sinek when he said that “Trust and cooperation are not instructions, they are feelings”. Effective leaders will be able to define and implement the organization’s strategy based on the feedback from the blockchain. They could benefit from standardised anonymous feedback or share it with the permission of the employees to effectively contribute to their development and to improve their performance.

Blockchain Will Automate Many Management Tasks

Gartner research predicts that “…69% of Routine Work Currently Done by Managers will Be Fully Automated by 2024”. I covered in my last blockchain article how digitalization supported by Web 3.0 and blockchain technology can save us time and increase efficiency by automation tasks. Leaders have little option but to adopt these technologies as quickly as possible.

Digital transformation refers to the adoption of a portfolio of technologies. For example, Web 3.0 will provide freedom to employees and will empower leaders to manage from a distance. There is now more awareness and adoption of new technologies like blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), robotic process automation (RPA), machines learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).

Technology is facilitating remote connections and changing how we do things and interact with each other. Remote working and management are here to stay. Teams can collaborate and complete projects without being in the same office.

Leaders can now combine blockchain technology with the use of AI and facial/emotional recognition devices. We are already using virtual personal assistants and chatbots to automate back-office tasks. There is a decrease of management activities as a result of automation and self-executing smart contracts. However, not everybody will be willing to learn and adapt to this highly cognitively working environment.

Future Business Strategies Will Require Leadership Based on Clarity and Focus

Being agile is now a given, there is a greater need for speed and to leverage new technologies to prioritise decision making. Digitalization and embracing blockchain technology will allow us to accomplish more tasks in less time. We can automate the decision-making process and focus on social relationships with various stakeholders. To be more effective as leaders we need to identify and maintain the relationships that lead to tangible benefits.

Once we have a clear vision, we must persistently stay on course to drive it to implementation. When I was in the Spanish navy, part of my responsibilities as helmsman were to change the angle of the rudder to maintain the course of the ship. During training they drilled into us that waves and winds were going to push us off course and how to steer back to our right target. Quite similarly, in today’s business leadership, we just need to tighten our grip on the ship’s wheel and set our strategy in the right direction.

The current magnitude of digitalization, change and demands will take us off course. Customers are smarter, more demanding and with higher expectations and ready to shift their business to new entrants. On top of this, the kids may keep you up all night, you or a close one may get sick, you could lose your key employee or partner, etc. So, leaders need to be present and focused to be able to prioritise and deliver on their vision despite all the noise and proliferation of changing demands.

Leadership and Resilience to Deal with Uncertainty and Stress

Now more than ever, the capacity to deal with adversity, setbacks, challenges, and to recover coming back better and stronger is critical in leadership. The emphasis of leadership should be on compassion, kindness and empathy towards ourselves and others. To inspire others to give their best, we need to be able to understand their perspective and what they are going through in any particular situation.

We can use exercise and practices such as meditation and mindfulness to deal with anxiety and any external situation. However, as leaders we must understand that our team members are driven and want to be part of something meaningful and influential. It is important to know how they feel and what they are getting out of their efforts.

I think that think that empathy refers more to the ability to take the perspective of and to feel the emotions of another person. Compassion includes the desire to help, to take actions that will alleviate another person’s distress. Being compassionate and kind are closely related to empathy but in my opinion, compassion goes one step further.

Conclusion: Blockchain Technology Will Enable New Business Strategies

Embracing blockchain technology will help us to move our approach from managers to effective leaders. Blockchain business strategies provide decentralization of power and a high level of automation saving time to exchange ideas and information. Everyone will be more responsible for their own work because it is really transparent and performance based. Most management tasks will not exist or require human involvement anymore.

In this digital world where physical presence is not necessary, to be effective leaders we must collaborate, communicate openly and constantly steer the ship back on course. Navigating these troubled waters unafraid requires commitment, transparency and consistency. This is very well articulated in the Invictus poem by William Ernest Henley, “…I am the master of my fate and the captain of my soul.”

Author bio LinkedIn| Twitter |Rioxa Consulting

Juan Rio Salvador is a global business transformation leader and risk management expert. He has over twenty years of real-world management experience in financial services and innovation in Europe and the USA.

He founded Rioxa Consulting to empower people to thrive in life and in business by inspiring them. Juan is passionate about leadership & business strategy, the future of work, continuous improvement, blockchain & cryptocurrency adoption, robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (A.I.).

He is an energetic international speaker invited at forums and conferences in Frankfurt, Budapest, London, Madrid, Barcelona, etc. He recently published “How to Build a Thriving Business, The Proven Formula for Growing Your Business Post Covid-19”.

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