Leaders need to raise their DQ

The natural order of leadership is changing over time as a new generation, well versed in digital developments, launches start-ups from their bedrooms. However, in more traditional organisations, it’s still common for leadership positions to come with age and experience.

Many of these more traditional leaders are still playing catch up with the true meaning of ‘digital’ and how to integrate it seamlessly into their lives and business. And they will increasingly be doing business with – and facing competition from – a generation for whom digital media is natural territory and where there is little or no blurring of the lines between and offline environments.

(As a parent, I sometimes worry that our children are becoming absorbed in the digital world at the expense of reality and are therefore missing out on learning human values that have been embedded over millennia, but that’s a rant for another blog!)

Political, educational and business leaders need to embrace ‘digital’ to the point where its use as an adjective becomes almost redundant. For this to happen, a new form of intelligence needs to be cultivated.

IQ, EQ and beyond

We have become well accustomed to the notion of intelligence being measured by a level of IQ, and the works of Howard Gardner, Daniel Goleman, Edward de Bono and others have introduced the concept of multiple intelligences. In particular an ability to recognise and control one’s emotions and to have a positive effect by recognising and adjusting to the emotions of others is widely accepted as ‘Emotional Intelligence’ or EQ (literally ‘emotional quotient’).

It should be no surprise, therefore, that the term ‘Digital Intelligence or ‘DQ’ has recently arisen to represent the skills we need to thrive in the increasingly connected world.

Yuhyun Park, Chair of the Infollution ZERO Foundation, writing for the World Economic Forum, has released a list of eight digital intelligence skills that we should be teaching to children preparing to enter the future workplace. They offer an equally useful checklist of any leader wishing to improve her or his skills in this area. And it’s worth noting that the recommended skills are as much about values and behaviours as they are about technical understanding.

The eight skills are categorised under three levels:

Level 1: Digital citizenship
The ability to use digital technology and media in safe, responsible and effective ways
Level 2: Digital creativity
The ability to become a part of the digital ecosystem by co-creating new content and turning ideas into reality by using digital tools
Level 3: Digital entrepreneurship
The ability to use digital media and technologies to solve global challenges or to create new opportunities