| E-enabling technologies are the next evolutionary step in sharing data, information, and communication between business partners, suppliers, and customers. However, the increasingly complex technical systems, processes, and integration issues associated with e-enabling encourages a new type of leadership: e-leadership. This qualitative phenomenological study explored the lived project management and leadership experiences of 20 global business leaders. It focused on their use of leadership skills, knowledge, and practices necessary to transform traditional models of operation into a leaner learning and working together organization. Four themes emerged from the research. The key findings reveal that transformational characteristics of leadership combined with the e-leadership style impact the quality of information technology implementations. The leaders' experiences helped them perceive the transformative effects that leadership has on business and technology decisions made, and helped them identify best practices and processes that can sustain a successful e-enabling implementation experience. Adopting e-enabling best practices and transformational processes elevates leadership decision-making and supports new change management philosophies. It also redirects mentoring, training, and education strategies toward alignment with business objectives and goals intended to enable new e-leadership strategies in organizations. As businesses, engineering, and operations management continue to deploy complex information technologies, changes to team skills, processes, and knowledge management will require 21st century e-leadership. |
