For the European economy to grow and compete with the rest of the world, countries in Europe needs a significant amount of e-leaders – people capable of driving successful innovation by taking advantage of the latest advances of digital technologies. These include those of mobility, cloud computing, big data analytics, social media technologies, Internet of Things, secure systems, microelectronics, parallel systems, robotics, photonics and so on. This continuous innovation creates not only opportunities for competitiveness and growth, but also demand for people with specific skills to grasp these opportunities.

Leadership has been said to be a quality that you are born with, but this is not entirely true. Leaders are also made and grown through the experience, skills, knowledge and attitudes that a person manages to acquire. This is more so for e-leaders who would have acquired knowledge and skills in strategy, technology and business.

e-leaders don’t come along by chance. Countries need a concerted effort, or better, a serious agenda, to cultivate these very important individuals

But e-leaders don’t come along by chance. Countries need a concerted effort, or better, a serious agenda, to cultivate these very important individuals. The agenda should include monitoring, benchmarking and forecasting; industry education and training; platform-based online career support, recruitment and job search; better coordination on policy alignment and funding; national high-tech innovation strategies and policy commitment; and last but not least, the promotion and awareness of e-leadership.

Key players need to come out of their comfort zone to make e-leadership a reality. In particular:

Universities and business schools need to move away from traditional behaviours, anthologies, curriculum standards and existing programmes. New players are likely to come up with offers in this do­main, or even take over if traditional education institutions fail to react. E-leadership curriculum profiles are developed by a team of academics and industry representatives supported by educational experts;

Industry needs to specify their needs in more detail, and to train people to be more creative and in­no­vative. There is a need to deal with non-conforming behaviour as this is often the way to innovate;

Policymakers need to set the right framework conditions, including fostering joint initiatives with industry and universities.

The EU has led the initiative on e-leadership, starting in 2013 with a focus on large enterprises, which was enlarged in 2014 to include SMEs and start-ups. There have been some good examples of universities and business schools around Europe that have stolen the limelight with regard to the development of e-leadership programmes. These include the New Bulgarian University, Aarhus University, An­twerp Management School, Henley Business School, and Croatia’s Algebra University College.

The University of Malta’s Master’s programme in Knowledge-Based Entrepreneurship is the closest home-grown course on e-leadership.

Malta does not fair badly in the EU e-leadership index of the 27 EU countries. This is due to the various measures in the country to promote start-ups and the mix of highly digital activities and entrepreneurship in Malta. In future we expect that Malta will also move closer to develop e-leadership curriculums and initiatives.

Carm Cachia is CEO/executive coordinator at eSkills Malta Foundation.

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