Training on digital transformation for leaders at Head level of units

At the training class, Minister Nguyen Manh Hung shared his views, core values, strategic thinking and the position and role of a leader in a unit or organization in the era of digital transformation. .

According to the Minister, a leader is a pioneer, must set an example, must be the first to encounter challenges, must have a path mindset, must see the destination.

However, the journey is still more important than the destination, because on that journey leaders experience and realize new values, helping them make the right strategies and decisions.

Being a leader means being able to "tolerate" people and "tolerate" change

The Minister also mentioned the difference between Eastern and Western philosophies as well as the importance of understanding and applying these philosophies in leadership. Accordingly, to be a leader, you must be able to "put up with" people. To be a leader in the era of digital transformation, you must be able to "embrace" change. To do so, we must be able to "use" two modes of thinking, Eastern and Western.

According to the Minister, "tolerance" here means to understand. "Tolerating others" means understanding others, that person is different from us, may be better than us, and has things we don't have. If you want to "embrace change", you must understand change and understand the trends of the times.

Leaders need to know how to combine Eastern and Western ways of thinking, two different but complementary approaches: The West analyzes details, while the East focuses on the whole. The combination of both will help the organization have both a detailed view and an overall picture.

Combining Eastern and Western philosophies

Leaders must know how to combine two ways of thinking to create the most effective leadership method. For example, Eastern philosophy relies on intuition while Western philosophy relies on logical reasoning. In times of great change, times of innovation, intuition is better. Therefore, in an organization, intuitive people are encouraged to come up with creative ideas. Logical people filter creative ideas to find the best ones. Stable, regular tasks are assigned to logical people. New, unprecedented tasks should be left to intuitive people.

Regarding the cultural differences between East and West, the Minister emphasized that Asians value "harmony", harmony with each other and harmony with the universe. However, life with only harmony cannot develop. From that perspective, an organization's leadership should have different leaders to have many different perspectives and necessary criticism. With such diversity in the leadership, the organization will be sustainable and develop.

The Minister emphasized the role of theory to promote an organization to develop because without theory to guide it, it cannot go far and cannot lead many people. Therefore, developing a country and an industry must also have theory as a fulcrum to go a long way. The Ministry is assigning the National Digital Transformation Department to develop a theory of digital transformation, using it as a flag and handbook for making major decisions.. After that, pilot it successfully and move towards universalization. Theory must be based on the trends of the times, human knowledge, combined with Vietnamese practice and Vietnamese culture.

Theory plays an important role, but "practice" is also very necessary. Both theory and practice must be combined to be effective. Western philosophy considers experimentation important, thus developing technology. This is the strength of the West that we must learn. Leaders must create conditions for employees in the organization to experiment many times to create new things and create breakthroughs.

Especially in the age of digital technology, practice and experimentation play an even more important role, because "doing" is the best way to learn, only "doing" will make you enlighten.

Finally, the Minister concluded that being a leader in the digital transformation period requires having a destination, having a guiding star, handling daily situations well and moving quickly. Just like driving a car, if one of the above three factors fails, it's all gone.

The Minister directed the Department of Personnel and Organization to coordinate with VTC to organize a topic-based training program every quarter, providing knowledge, with pass or fail testing. The MOOCs format is organized with the aim of creating learning habits for all civil servants of the Ministry./.