Smart technology: the leadership challenge

This paper takes a lateral approach toward developing discussion around the challenge for the modern-day leader in the area of fast-moving technological change. It isolates Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) as a barometer for the typical multi-level manifestations any leader can expect from the implementation of any new technology. Rather than focus on operational change itself, this paper embraces emotional and ethical considerations without specific or cosmetically prescribed answers. Written to provoke individual thought, the text contains a range of catalytic concepts so leaders can develop their own diagnostic/evaluative approach and plan their own tailored strategy using the knowledge they have of their own business. An interesting and harder result of ethical conflict along with a mixed emotional cost-benefit analysis emerges as a serious matter for leaders to factor into their calculative vision at both tactical and strategic levels. The paper concludes that only through carefully considered leadership development can the paradoxes created by such new technology be effectively handled