Leadership 4.0: Digital Leaders in the Age of Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 stands for ‘fourth industrial revolution' and is a term referring to rapid transformations in the design, production, implementation, operation, and service of manufacturing systems, products, and components. To get the most out of Industry 4.0 technologies, organizations will have to heavily invest in building capabilities in the following dimensions: data and connectivity, analytics and intelligence, conversion to the physical world, and human-machine interaction. In this study, the human dimension of industry 4.0 has priority, by analyzing behavioral leadership theories that focus on the study of the specific behaviors of a leader (the leader behavior is the predictor of his leadership influences and is the best determinant of his leadership success). A two dimensional 4.0 leadership style matrix was developed (x-axis: innovation/technology concern; y-axis: people concern). The results of this study revealed that the developed industry 4.0 leadership style might have the dimensions of first-year students, social, technological or digital, where the 4.0 digital leader forms the highest reachable level in the 4.0 leadership matrix.