People Make Tech Work: Why Digital Transformation Fails Without Frontline Leadership

Digital transformation sounds like a systems upgrade.
But at its core, it’s a culture shift.

You can roll out new software, automate reporting, and launch AI-driven dashboards, but if your frontline leaders and teams don’t understand it, believe in it, or trust it… it’s not transformation. It’s just noise.  More noise than exists already.

And that’s why so many well-intentioned digital initiatives fail.
It’s not that the tech isn’t ready, it’s that the people it’s meant to support, the ones it’s there to help, aren’t brought along for the ride.

How do I know this? Because it comes up again and again in my frontline leadership programs.  The moment we start talking about culture, the same theme surfaces: change isn’t managed well.  New systems get rolled out, leaders haven’t been consulted, and no one really knows how to use it. Frontline leaders and teams are left to figure it out on their own.

When it comes to digital transformation, culture only carries it 80% of the way.

So what role do frontline leaders play in making digital transformation actually work?  As it turns out a big one.  Leave them behind and you risk setting your new system up to fail.

Read on, to learn how to engage early and get it right.

The first thing is to consult early, to build trust in where you are going.  All too often, systems are designed around the work, but not with the people who do the work. 

As a coach we often ask clients to articulate what they would like a certain area of life to look like in 6 or 12 months from now, followed up by what they could do to make that happen.  The same applies to technical transformation.  Ask your team, if you had a magic wand what would work look like 6 to 12 months form now once this tool is up and running?

Don’t underestimate the impact of change.  Tech change can trigger real anxiety for some team members, you need to create space for the emotional shift, not just the technical one.  Any change needs room to allow for feeling clumsy and uncomfortable while everyone learns something new.  It wont always be right the first time, it will require experimentation and that’s all part of the journey. 

When was the last time you truly felt out of your comfort zone at work or tried something completely new?

Make it the new normal.

It’s easy to focus on the hard metrics, what impact will the technical transformation have on the KPI’s?  Digital platforms love numbers, but don’t let the data take over 100%.  Success should be measured in human terms.

Creating people focused metrics like how confident users are using it and in output, how its improving communication or collaboration, what other habits or work patterns it could influence.  When you create people first outcomes, the data takes care of itself.

Every digital change will have points of friction.  Training falls short, early versus late adopters, getting people to stop using their favourite back up spreadsheet, delivery falls short of expectations.

When team members look to their leaders to ask “do we keep going, or go back to the old way?”, how do you respond?  Hold the cultural and people first line.

Reinforce the why behind the change, who it’s there to support and how the whole team will get through it together whilst staying committed to implementation and embracing the new way.  That’s where leadership will decide if the digital change will stick (or not!).

Leaders change culture, not digital transformations.

Yes, digital transformations will bring efficiency, insight, speed and access to data perhaps you didn’t have before.

But none of that will matter if the people in your team don’t feel included, supported and connected to the end goal as they progress through the change.

Technology doesn’t create trust.

People do.

When frontline leaders embrace their role as culture shapers, not just process drivers, transformation becomes more than a roll out.