Rethinking digital leadership through empathy and algorithms

I regularly spend my Saturday mornings watching my children during their swimming lessons. I also am one of those people who find it hard to put ideas down. After a week thinking and talking about digital technology in health and care it’s common for random thoughts from the week to still be bouncing around my brain. This includes recent conversations with a colleague on how we define technology. Today most of us have a computer in our pocket and software powered devices are part of normal everyday interactions, to the point that now the word technology is the same as computing devices and software. But it’s not always been the case, if we take a longer term view and recast technology as a tool or product that allows us to do different things to achieve a goal. There are obvious examples of technologies that are not digital that had dramatic impact in the world, the printing press and power loom are just two. It’s possible to go one step further and ask: do technologies have to be physical tools? The short answer is no, there is this concept of social technology.

Swimming is an example of social technology, it’s a socially spread collection of techniques on how to coordinate the movement of limbs and breathing in the right way. Yes, you can have the latest material science to create the lowest friction swimwear but this physical technology is irrelevant without the knowledge and technique to confidently move through water. Different strokes allow you to move in different directions, navigate different depths, conserve energy, or increase speed. These swimming techniques are not hardwired; they are learned, taught, refined, and passed on. They are a form of social technology—a skillset developed collectively over time that enables humans to achieve something extraordinary: to navigate water with control and confidence.

Social technologies are complex and powerful

But the concept of social technologies goes far beyond swimming and can be incredibly complex too.

Cassava root is native to South America and highly toxic in its raw form, due to lethal levels of cyanide. Consuming it without proper preparation can be fatal. Yet, indigenous communities developed sophisticated methods of processing cassava involving soaking, fermenting, drying, cooking that in combination neutralise the poison. It’s important to note that these methods were not the product of laboratories or scientific protocols. They emerged from generations of observation, experimentation, adaptation, and shared wisdom. This knowledge was passed down through rituals, habits, and shared understanding this is again, social technology in action. When cassava was imported to new regions, the crop often moved without its accompanying culture of preparation. The result was tragic with cases of cyanide poisoning and even death.

In tropical rainforests animals are agile, fast and often out of reach making hunting hard without an effective poison. Indigenous communities have long been using curare to paralyse hunted animals while not contaminating the meat so it’s safe to eat. But creating curare is a complex and involved process starting with a harmless vine of just the right age, this is stripped, crushed and boiled at just the right temperature and kept there for days (this requires special knowledge on wood). It then needs to be cooled and stored in just the right way to maintain potency. How a community reached this very intricate process is based on ritual, norms, group experimentation, trust and the role of specialised knowledge keepers in the community.

This illustrates just how sophisticated social technologies can be. They are not less “advanced” because they aren't digital. In many cases, they can be mindboggling complex and nuanced.

What cuts across these examples is the idea that social technologies are about how culture, norms, shared learning and experimentation unlock the capabilities of physical tools for a specific purpose.

Social technologies enabling digital technology

In a society where technology means computers and software, we can overlook the necessity of social technologies to develop the means of using our digital tools effectively. Digital technologies are a relatively recent toolset that require different combinations of social technologies for them to be used effectively. This is especially important when leading and creating cohesive teams.

Good leadership has always depended on strong social technologies: the ability to inspire, to convene, to negotiate, to build consensus, to set norms, to cultivate trust.

Looking at the leadership development for digital in the NHS and social care it is too often focused on deploying technology. This neglects the social technologies such as the group identify, culture and norms needed to use the technology. I suspect we’re all familiar with the online meeting where someone simply talks at the group. How engaged, involved and connected are these people or are they tapping away at emails and multi-tasking? That’s if they even have cameras on!

So what does leadership need to look like?

In short leadership must be both digitally literate and socially fluent. Absolutely leaders need to drive the digital transformation agenda but that's not enough. Leaders must understand how to use digital tools in combination with social technologies. Leadership needs to adapt and evolve social technologies to use the functionality of digital tools to create cohesion, culture, and trust. Polls, break out rooms, chat, voice notes, staff satisfaction rating and even simple emoji reactions have long been available. How are they being utilised to build engagement by leaders and within their teams?

Leaders need to use the best tool to share updates in order to protect the shared time together to use social techniques and build the team community within digital and hybrid environments. New routines and shared behaviours foster connection even through screens. Shared group identity in digital spaces can and does encourage empathy and dialogue.

Health and social care are increasingly becoming digitally enabled, aspects of care can be delivered remotely which can bring flexibility benefits for staff and recruitment benefits for providers but can fragment teams. With digital adoption small touch points like shared workspaces and in person training have eroded away. This likely to continue as AI automates communications and replaces some tasks.

The digital age has been here for some time and social technologies in leadership have yet to adjust. Now we've got AI on the horizon that could automate tasks, reduce contact between colleagues and change how we communicate causing further strain on workplace connection. We shouldn't forget: it’s the social technologies that have always held us together. What we need are leaders to be wizards adept at blending social technologies in digital environments. And it's those leaders who will help to shape whether our digitally enabled future workplace is one of connection or fragmentation.

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Transparency on AI use: GenAI tools have been used to help draft and edit this publication and create the images. But all content, including validation, has been by the author.