Archetypes of a Digital Leader. Development of a Competency Requirements Profile (PDF)

Master's Thesis from the year 2021 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,0, University of Frankfurt (Main), language: English, abstract: This paper is about archetypes of a Digital Leader and takes a closer look at the development of a competency requirements profile based on a qualitative literature analysis.

This thesis aims to develop a valid model of different archetypes of the DL and to provide those various archetypes with individual competencies. The archetypes match the respective challenges for corporations in their digitalization and transformation process.

In order to develop such archetypes and the associated competency requirements, the following research questions will be answered throughout the thesis to define the boundaries of the case.

1. How can various leadership approaches as well as existing archetype and competency approaches be combined to create a new competency requirement profile of a Digital Leader?
2. What different archetypes of a Digital Leader emerge in terms of their competencies in the course of the Digitalization and Digital Transformation?

In an environment characterized by transformation, in which long-term planning and reliable predictions are becoming increasingly impossible, competent leaders are becoming indispensable and even vital for organizations. Organizations must identify leaders who possess a comprehensive set of competencies for the emerging requirements.

To address this issue, the outline of the thesis is as follows: section 2 introduces a comprehensive overview of the related literature and the definitional boundaries as well as existing approaches are provided. In section 3 the utilized research methodology is covered. This is followed, in section 4, by the presentation of the elaborated model and the results from the interviews will be connected to the research questions.

In section 5, the work and the model are discussed and assessed in terms of potential limitations. Finally, a conclusion and outlook for further research requirements regarding the topic is provided in section 6.