Voice of CIO – Episode 3 | Digital Leadership, with Greg Sankar
In this third episode of the Voice of CIO series on YouTube, viewers can witness a conversation between Greg Sanker and Suresh GP. MD, Taub Solutions. Greg is an exuberant and energetic Senior IT Leader and industry veteran. In this interview, he is all excited to talk on his favourite topic, Digital Leadership.
Suresh started the episode to know more about Greg’s transition
The transition from Operations Manager to CIO
Rated as one of HDI’s top 25 influencers, Greg has spent a lot of time in service management within organizations. He begins by talking about his career journey till the current pandemic scenario. He highlights among other things, his take on best practices. Though he admits their importance, he feels they do not solve his problems. He says they need to be seen not more than for what they are. They are just tools that we use to address problems. He reveals that getting into the CIO’s shoes has made just that little bit of difference in altitude for him. Being an operations manager to being a CIO has elevated his vantage point remarkably. The perspective change has really opened his ideas to the incredibly important role of digital leadership.
Grerg’s response on Suresh’s next question on ‘Agile’,
What does an Agile Organisation look like?
Greg says everyone has an idea of what agility really means. It usually has something to do with rapidly delivering software into your organization. But ‘agility’ is a broader term that has prevailed for thousands of years. It means that we are able to not only rapidly foresee the inevitable changes we are heading towards, but respond to it appropriately. Agility is not just about building capability or seeing what’s coming your way. It is also the ability to respond rapidly. Hence, to be an agile organization is not merely having agile software development ‘tribes and squads’. It is one which sees the real ‘agility’ move into the boardroom, into the senior executive ranks where it traditionally hasn’t been. For a detailed understanding, viewers can access the video which is filled with insightful information and knowledge.
According to Greg, technology has undergone an enormous change. It is moving so fast that, as a senior leader you are no longer going to be the expert at everything that’s happening in your organization.
Greg’s response to
How CIO’s manage to build digital leadership capability was interesting to hear.
He listed a few of the core capabilities such as:
- ● empowering people
- ● being focused less on the processes,practices and technologies; more on the
cultural aspect, - ● creating psychological safety,
- ● possessing and propagating emotional intelligence,
- ● breeding curiosity while being curious yourself ,
- ● developing organizational, professional agility and resilience.
He makes a significant point saying that the pandemic didn’t change everything. It did expose that everything has already changed. It showed we were very behind in our thought processes and our service delivery mechanisms. This part really gets interesting as he explains the lessons to be learnt from the pandemic of 2020 – 2021. He suggests that we can’t afford to respond to everything like it’s an emergency. We have to be adaptive and flexible.
Greg addresses a lot of points around the core theme of digital leadership. It means that, in spite of the word ‘digital’, fundamentally ‘leadership’ is about managing the business. It is about developing a culture. It is far more than the digital and technological part.
Finally, the response by Greg on the issue of motivating the millennials was intriguing. He reveals from reports collected on millennials per se, that the primary thing they want is to make a contribution. They don’t want to wait. They want to do something that’s meaningful. They want to be given the opportunity to make a contribution. Unlike previous generations of workers, if they can’t do something then they would rather go somewhere they can. Therefore, as a leader, one must understand that they need problems to solve. They need the tools. This generation is very open to the idea of being coached and mentored. They want to be given feedback for sure.
All of those that are interested in the full conversation, do catch it at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X_KSHLXT0g
To Watch more episodes, just click the link below
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOkleIdCB0IzQKWaMnQikAB3Lct0jWJHM
