Why Digital Leadership?

Digital trends have triggered transformative change in many sectors, but this change is only beginning to happen for non-profits. One of the main obstacles to the process of digital transformation being rolled out successfully is lack of Digital Leadership.

While organisations will have digital experts in their midst, they will not see them as leaders who can guide the organisation through the process of digital implementation and transformation.

Digital strategy decisions are sometimes made by people higher up the chain with little understanding of the consequences. Sometimes, Digital Lead is left to pick up the pieces and will often feel that management "doesn't get it", that they are being treated as service providers rather than strategists and experts in their own right.

On the other hand, Digital Leads sometimes don't have the skills or time to develop trusting relationships with higher levels in an organisation. It is important that they are supported and directed by their managers to become better (digital) leaders as they know the culture, processes and the issues an organisation works on. But if leadership needs to be brought in from outside of the organisation, management will benefit from knowing how to search for the right candidate as technical knowledge while important isn't enough.

Read more on this topic on digitalleaders.org.uk/blog.

What is the Digital Leadership Forum?

The Digital Leadership Forum is a two-day personal development workshop aiming to help Digital Leads and other Managers in organisations become better in leading Digital.

It’s an opportunity to unwind, slow down, take stock of the past year, learn how to use some of the influencing, leadership and coping tools and create a personal development plan for the year ahead.

Developing ourselves is so often seen as a luxury, but it is essential for career progression and becoming better at one's job.

And learning about ourselves needs time. DLF 2016 stretches over two days (11-12 April). Time for presentations is reduced to allow more space for participants' own reflection, discussion and facilitated thinking and planning.

If you've had a mentor or a coach, you will know what these two days will feel like. While many of us haven't got much time to think about how we operate in the workplace beyond pure delivery, when we allow ourselves to do it, we learn a lot about self and how others perceive us. And this is an important learning when thinking about how we build trust and maintain relationship with colleagues.

The day will be facilitated by Brani with the support of Pheona Croom-Johnson, leadership mentor and coach, and Guillermo Rogel, organisational development consultant. Sessions will focus on discussion and exercises which will provide participants with tools to help them develop their (digital) leadership and influencing skills.

Why two days?

In previous three years we realised that we need to slow down and allow more time to drill into topics and give participants enough space for reflection and discussion. That’s why this year DLF will stretch over two days 11-12 April and focus on four themes:

• Learning about yourself as a leader, connecting with others on the course and identifying main challenges for you in the next year
• Managing up with integrity
• How to have difficult conversations
• Developing personal resilience

New for 2016

Digital Leadership Forum participants who are also thinking of joining ECF 2016, will have an option to try out 60-minute leadership coaching sessions on the first day of ECF (13th April).

Who is DLF for?

If you've been to DLF 2015, this year's forum will be building on those discussions and your experience since. Plus you will be working with a different group of people so the experience will be different.

Digital Leadership Forum is an opportunity for Digital Leads (a person in an organisation who leads on Digital, therefore can be at any level in an organisational hierarchy), their managers and anyone working closely with Digital teams to gain deeper understanding of each other's professional motivations so they can build better working relationships.

This is the forth year of the Digital Leadership Forum so it is still new to the ECF community. If you have any questions/thoughts/feedback, please don't hesitate to get in touch with Duane or Brani

Draft Agenda