Fostering digital leaders and overcoming skill gap: lessons from Malaysia and Indonesia

When it comes to digital transformation, training employees is critical. However, nurturing digital leaders is even more important, according to Senior Director of MyDigital Corporation Malaysia, Ellina Roslan.

"You may have very passionate people at the ground levels, but when the proposal or initiative is not taken up by your leaders, or even your leaders do not understand how digital transformation works, then the idea will not be executed," she added. 

Ellina was speaking in a panel session titled Digital Leadership vs Employee Skill, at the GovInsider Live Indonesia 2024 conference held on November 14 in Jakarta. She was one of the several public sector leaders who shared their insights on strategies to create leaders who can use technology to drive change.

Other speakers on the panel included Ministry of Communication and Digital Indonesia's Head of Centre for Professional Development and Certification, Badar Agung Nugroho; PMO Prakerja's Director of Partnership, Communication, and Ecosystem Development, Dwina M Putri; and Ministry of Industry's Head of Delivery Pusat Industri Digital Indonesia (PIDI) 4.0, Ahmad Cahyo Nugroho.

The panel was moderated by the National ICT Entrepreneurs Association's Secretary-General, Fanky Christian.  

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Addressing skill gap 

According to Ellina, the main challenge in nurturing digital leaders is the skill gap. The most common problem is that many leaders are senior and have a limited capability to learn something new. It is therefore important to identify the leaders you want to nurture and prepare the right training.  

"We don't want to ask them to become programmers or technology developers, but to give them an understanding of the complexities and business processes involved in the digital transformation process.” 

She gave the example of MyDigital Corporation's collaboration with Asia School of Business on the Executive Digital Leadership programme. The programme aims to equip executives in middle to senior management across all sectors and industries in Malaysia with the knowledge and skills to accelerate digital transformation.

The programme lasts for three months. At the the end, each participant must create a roadmap that includes action plans on what they want to do in their respective organisations. 

More broadly, the Malaysian Government is also reviewing internal organisational structures. For instance, each ministry must now have a Chief Digital Officer who is responsible for change management. 

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Focus on local government leaders

Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Digital’s Badar Agung Nugroho highlighted that the skill gap does not occur only at the horizontal level, but also vertically, or between the central and the local level.  

"We want to focus on the local level so that regional leaders have a digital mindset to develop their regions. So that they make data-based decisions, utilise the right technology, and are no longer siloed." 

Through the Digital Leadership Academy programme, the Ministry of Komdigi gathers regional leaders and heads of departments in the regions for training that adopts the curriculum of top global universities such as MIT, Oxford University and Tsinghua University. Through this initiative, they can learn how to develop and implement technology-based public policies and create action plans.

At the end of the programme, all participants are required to produce a working paper or policy brief that contains the results of an analysis of the existing conditions in their respective regions, knowing the right technology for the organisation and compiling a cost and benefit analysis. 

"Previously, leaders may not need to take care of things like this because there is a team that does it for them. But the transformation process requires us to change our perspective and way of working, which may be uncomfortable for some people," Badar added. 

Overcoming regional disparities 

PMO Kartu Prakerja's Dwina M Putri highlighted that the main challenge in producing digital leaders in Indonesia is the high skill gap between regions. In eastern Indonesia, the type of training needed still revolves around Microsoft Office, while in big cities the learning can be more advanced.  

She added that cooperation between the government and the private sector is key to improving the competitiveness of Indonesia's workforce. "With cooperation, the government can focus on the big things such as participation and regulations. Meanwhile, the private sector focuses on more detailed and specialised matters," Dwina said. 

The Kartu Prakerja programme has provided end-to-end digital training for 18.9 million Indonesian workers through collaboration with ministries, industry associations, universities and training partners.  

Ministry of Industry’s Ahmad Cahyo Nugroho argued that simultaneous training at every level of the organisation, from the C-level to the frontliners, is needed to cope with Industry 4.0. This will prevent the organisation from the "pilot trap" or a condition where the piloting process [from the leader] is good, but the execution after that point is lacking.

“In this case, leaders must learn how to develop roadmaps, managers must be equipped with the knowledge to understand technology adoption and process engineering, and frontliners must be upskilled to operate the latest technology tools,” said Ahmad.

The Ministry of Industry, through the PIDI 4.0 unit, designs professional competency standards in the industrial ecosystem and organises training and workshops to ensure every member of organisation is equipped with the required skills. 

This article was originally published in Bahasa Indonesia