Leadership skills for Industry 4.0 : scale development and validation

Varying impact of digitalization is felt on all organizations irrespective of their sector/industry. The milieu is relatively under researched for the manufacturing sector. Complexity of the situation is further intensified by volatile, unpredictable, complex and ambiguous conditions (VUCA) of the existing environment, announcing onset of the fourth industrial revolution – Industry 4.0. Leading an organization amidst such circumstances calls for a special skill set matching this unique nature. Scholarly work focusing on distinctive features of Industry 4.0 and its effect on several sectors is abundantly available. Nevertheless, an instrument to the skills desired in leaders for effectively leading in Industry 4.0 is left unattended. In the present work, three major 4.0 skill dimensions needed in a leader in Industry 4.0, referred as ‘4.0 Leader’s Skill Set’ were identified, namely Digital Comfort, Cognitive Thinking and Team Sensitivity. The study was conducted in two phases wherein the first phase, data from 250 employees of manufacturing sector were taken. An additional sample of 294 employees were taken in Phase II for confirmatory analysis and validation of the scale. Satisfactory values of KMO (0.931) and Bartlett’s test of Sphericity: p<0.05 were obtained. Overall reliability of scale capturing 4.0 Leader’s Skill Set is 0.9. 4.0 Leader’s Skills was established as a reflective - reflective second order construct with the identified 3 dimensions; CT, TS and DC wherein reliability and validity of the scale was established by using PLS-SEM.