Embracing empathic Leadership: The Backbone of tech-First Companies of the future

Aleksandar Rodic, Chief Information Officer, FIEGE

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Companies face many challenges in a rapidly changing environment, requiring them to survive in the market while being part of the infinite game of their own development. Being part of the infinite game, we at Fiege IT have claimed our mission of becoming the tech-first company of the future. To be able to reach this goal, we strongly believe that we have to overcome the separation of business and IT and instead evolve an ecosystem where IT and business are linked to and enable each other. By unifying the business and IT strategy, it is necessary to describe a concrete and clear purpose for the IT department to show the strategic guideline in a way that speaks the language of the business.

One major effect is that the IT department in a company will not only be a cost centre anymore but will become a business unit that operates as a digital business driver in the future. It is also possible that there is no recognisable difference between IT and business during daily operations.

The basis of IT being a business driver relies on three pillars: operational excellence, innovation & sustainability and customer relationships. Operational excellence is a core value which needs to be applied in every part of the business in order to achieve IT excellence.

This also includes the enterprise architecture, which encompasses the design and organisation of an organisation’s technology infrastructure, data systems, applications, and processes to align with strategic business objectives. Groundbreaking innovations are necessary in order to continue to be competitive in the future and to stand out from the competition. By building a strong customer relationship, total customer satisfaction can be achieved which nurtures loyalty and spurs revenue growth on a long-term basis.

All of these pillars are based on people who make a difference and are key to our future.

Understanding that people make a difference means creating a people culture in IT. People working in IT and business have to be knowledgeable and motivated, so we should invest in them and give them sufficient opportunities and responsibility to learn and develop. With the principle of the trusted circle, continuous feedback and a high loyalty culture, an empathic leader is capable of building high-performance teams with new recruits and existing employees.

People working in IT and business have to be knowledgeable and motivated, so we should invest in them and give them sufficient opportunities and responsibility to learn and develop

“Individuals play the games, but teams beat the odds.”

Trust is the basis of performance, effectiveness and efficiency. As a leader, it is therefore important to create trust in and within your team, and build a concept or a platform where feedback can be given. Make it personal so that motivation increases and people are striving for performance and future business models can be successfully implemented.

Thus, by creating an ecosystem that includes a strategic baseline, operational excellence, innovations and customer satisfaction, which generally relies on dedicated professionals, the empathic leadership is capable of building a strong, powerful and high-performance culture and an appropriate mindset for setting up a tech-first company of the future.

“Companies will no longer be simply technology-enabled; they will transform into “tech-first” entities across industries. This is a fundamental shift that must be reflected in how leaders think about their organizations and how people and technology work together.” (BCG).

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