Digital Transformation Leadership Characteristics: A Literature Analysis

Digital Transformation has generated much research and curiosity recently, with the COVID-19 global pandemic accelerating its pace across all industry sectors. Current literature has not adequately provided a comprehensive understanding of Digital Transformation Leadership (DTL). The objective of this research is to explore the characteristics of DTL by undertaking a comprehensive review of Information Systems literature using a systematic procedure of identifying and coding 87 research papers, resulting in 600 coded excerpts, capturing the ‘who’ and ‘what’ of DTL. Our analysis identifies eight DTL characteristics, namely: digital strategist, digital culturalist, digital architect, customer centrist, organisational agilist, data advocate, business process optimiser and digital workplace landscaper. We discuss mapping the DTL characteristics to c-suite roles, presenting a taxonomy from the literature, of interest to both academics and practitioners. This research raises the awareness of the concept of DTL characteristics, especially amongst those in positions of leadership and decision making authority.