eLLa 4.0

Starting Situation

As a design element, leadership is a decisive factor for the success of realizing good work in the digitalized world. At the same time, digital change also presents new challenges for leadership itself. Thus, the current progressive digital technology advances in the production and service sectors put enormous pressure for change on the social fabric of humans, organizational structures and processes, which are already in a state of fundamental tension. While proven leadership concepts and instruments reach their limits in the course of these developments, uncertainties arise and changed competencies of organizational decision-makers become necessary. The more digital the working world is, the more the question of the use of digital media in day-to-day leadership work itself comes up. In order to optimally prepare managers for these changes, management development must also realign itself accordingly. At present, however, there are hardly enough orientation and qualification offers for managers, which further intensifies uncertainties among leaders (especially in small and medium-sized enterprises). The joint project eLLa 4.0, as enabler for good leadership, targets this particular deficit.

Approach and expected result

In addition to FIR e. V. at RWTH Aachen University on the scientific side, the TU Dortmund - Sozialforschungsstelle (consortium leader) and the Fraunhofer-Institut für Arbeitswirtschaft und Organisation (IAO) (Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering) are involved in the implementation of the eLLa 4.0 project. The company partners consist of the four companies BEUMER Group GmbH & Co. KG, BELFOR DeHaDe GmbH, DMG Mori Spare Parts GmbH and WBS Training AG.

Qualitative expert interviews will initially provide information about the new challenges, and orientation and qualification requirements that arise for leaderss in the course of digitization. Aspects such as leadership concepts, understanding of roles, and leadership competencies will be scientifically analyzed. In addition, concrete needs analyses will be carried out in the participating companies and corresponding leadership-relevant design measures will be derived. The experiences are compiled and evaluated in prototypical case studies. Building on the results of expert interviews and case studies, qualification offers as well as an action guide for the development of interaction competence will be developed and integrated into the framework of the DFA Demonstrationsfabrik Aachen GmbH and the Future Work Labs Stuttgart. Future technologies can be made tangible in an exemplary way so that a discussion can take place on the real object in these real spaces. In this way, future - avoidable and desirable - scenarios of the division of labor between man and technology can be discussed.

Benefits for the target group

Leaders from all hierarchical levels and industries can benefit from the project results and insights and be enabled to do good work in the digitalized world through further training opportunities. In this way, they can anticipate the consequences of their interventions in the sociodigital fabric and reflect on the effects of working conditions. Moreover, wrong decisions and wrong controls in digital change can be avoided and decision uncertainties can be minimized. Conversely, technologies can be more easily configured and selected to support forms of good work. Employees can be enabled to perform their work in a way that is conducive to personal development and to be personally involved in the process of shaping digital change.