With an aim to shed light on leadership dos and don’ts in the digital era, the UK-based University of Bradford – a leading global technology university – hosted a workshop on ‘Leadership in the Age of Digital Era’ on November 23 in New Delhi.      

At a time when government data forecasts that India will be the world’s largest economy in the next 15 years, the need for able leaders across industry verticals who can drive this growth becomes of paramount importance. Moreover, with ‘Digital India’ being one of the key schemes of the Modi Government, the corporate world is fast adapting to the digital way of doing business. In such a scenario, it is vital that training modules on leadership dos and don’ts in the digital era are incorporated in the course curriculum by the higher education institutions.

Led by Professor Vishanth Weerakkody, associate dean-planning & resources at the University’s Faculty of Management and Law, the workshop focused on enhancing the knowledge of the participants regarding different leadership styles, and the skills and attributes associated with good leaders. Comments Prof. Weerakkody, “In recent times India has projected itself in the global setting as a major hub for technological advancement and development. However, there is further potential for Indian organisations to leverage new disruptive technologies such as the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Block Chain in order to out-innovate and out-execute established standards and outperform their competition both nationally and globally. In order to do so, having a forward-thinking mind-set and skill-set is imperative.”

He further added, “Leading an organisation is not a piece of cake. There are key themes that need to be recognised in order to be a competent leader in the digital era. In today’s time when disruption technologies are evolving, every leader needs to have knowledge of their potential and how those technologies may end up affecting their own selves or the organisations that they lead. It is the need of the hour that educational institutions start conducting training programmes on leadership and the attributes that are needed to succeed in the digital age so as to nurture the future leaders of the world.”

The ‘Leadership in the Age of Digital Era’ workshop was a part of University of Bradford’s ‘India Engagement Symposium’, which also witnessed a talk by the university’s vice-chancellor Prof. Brian Cantor as well as a presentation by Mark Garratt, director of external affairs, University of Bradford, outlining why Indian students should choose Bradford as a university. Regarding his visit to India, Prof. Cantor said, “The University of Bradford has strong links with India going back over many years. We hope, through this visitation, that we will be able to both continue and strengthen that relationship. Much like our university, the growth of Bradford as a region has been built on the hard work of citizens from across India who have settled in the local area.”

The India Engagement Symposium witnessed participation from some of the key influencers of students in Delhi-NCR region, including school leaders, student counselors, recruitment agents as well as representatives from various universities, corporate and financial institutions. All the participants of the workshop received a certificate of participation at the end of the session.