How women’s leadership styles are reshaping Digital Transformation

“ There’s a moment when you have to choose whether to be silent or to stand up.”

— Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

When women occupy a large share of senior tech roles, overall ROI rises by 66%. Likewise, the most gender‑diverse firms generate 34 % of their revenue from new products (Forbes, 2020). Yet women hold only 14% of tech roles in Europe (McKinsey, 2023). This gap shows us that many organizations still misunderstand what drives digital transformation.

The qualities that close this gap: collaboration, foresight, and agility, come naturally to many women. But structural bias keeps them sidelined. Moreover, organizations invest millions in platforms but overlook the human element that determine success. The result is stalled innovation, disengaged teams, widening skills gaps. 

A different approach is available. Servant leadership—a clear direction paired with genuine autonomy. Women practice this style instinctively, and the most resilient transformation teams I’ve led always included women in key decision‑making roles.

Therefore, we should rethink how we promote and empower women and close the leadership gap before it costs us the future.

WHY TRADITIONAL LEADERSHIP UNDERMINES DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Despite massive investments in technology, I’ve seen many digital transformations fall short. The reason is rarely technical. It’s leadership. 

Transformation isn’t about technology, it’s about people. Yet organizations continue to rely on hierarchical, top-down leadership models, or as I call them, “command-and-control leadership” structures that are fundamentally misaligned with the demands of digital change. 

This approach, rooted in control and predictability, stifles the agility, experimentation, and creativity that digital innovation needs. If we want change to stick, we must replace control with trust and hierarchy with shared ownership.

THE RISE OF SERVANT LEADERSHIP

These insights lead me to the leadership model that consistently delivers: servant leadership, putting people first to drive sustainable change. At it’s core, this approach sets a clear vision, remove obstacles, and grant genuine autonomy to drive digital programs.

I define servant leadership as putting my team’s needs before my own agenda: working alongside them to build trust, empower decision‑making, and cultivate shared ownership. It doesn’t mean issuing orders from on high; it means partnering with people and treating them with the respect and trust I expect in return.

Organizations that adopt this style report higher team performance, stronger innovation output, and deeper employee engagement. In contrast, directive leadership leads to disengagement, resistance, and lost momentum.

WHY WOMEN EXCEL AT LEADING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Servant leadership is inherently inclusive. It invites diverse voices, flattens hierarchies, and encourages engagement. In my experience, women embody these behaviours naturally, and are most effective at driving digital transformation forward. 

In times of uncertainty, these traits become strategic advantages. Women build psychological safety, lead with empathy, and bring an intuitive understanding of customer needs, which fuels innovation across banking, healthcare, and tech.

Leaders like Anne Boden from Starling Bank and Fei-Fei Li in ethical AI are examples of what becomes possible when we grant women real authority and visibility.

Too often, however, many of these talents go unrecognized, not for lack of capability, but because systems and perceptions haven’t caught up. The question, then, isn’t whether women can lead digital transformation; it’s why we still fail to give them the opportunity.

WHAT’S HOLDING WOMEN BACK FROM LEADING TECH TRANSFORMATION

Although women demonstrate the skills digital transformation demands, they remain under‑represented in tech leadership. In Italy, 59.9% of women graduate from university, yet only 21% of them are employed as executives (InTrieste, 2025). And in Europe, only 23% of women with STEM degrees enter tech roles, compared to 44% of men (McKinsey, 2023). 

The culprit is the cultural bias that still discourages women from entering technical fields. Early in my career, I mentored an engineer who was told that “engineering is a male industry.” Had I not intervened, she likely would have abandoned her engineering career. Even when women enter tech, they’re often pushed into support roles and rarely where core expertise is built.

Leadership selection adds another layer of bias. Traits like empathy and collaboration that women often bring, and essential for transformation, are undervalued in leadership selection. The result is a disconnect between the leaders we need and the leaders we promote.

We cannot afford to ignore such disconnects. Organizations that fail to fix it risk sidelining the very leadership styles that drive innovation, resilience, and growth.

STRATEGIC ACTION PLAN TO ELEVATE WOMEN IN TECH LEADERSHIP

Closing the gender gap in digital leadership is about the value. McKinsey reports that doubling women’s tech participation could boost EU’s economy by €260–600 billion annually while closing talent gaps.

Therefore, if women already display the leadership traits, then organizations must take deliberate, structural steps to remove the barriers that hold them back.

To make this standard practice, we can distill our approach into four core priorities:

Build equitable systems

• Establish promotion criteria that reward collaborations, not just technical credentials.
• Track gender data across leadership pipelines and publish the numbers.
• Tie inclusive leadership to KPIs. Make it count in performance reviews.

Create development pathways

• Move women into product, data, and tech leadership roles, not just into support functions.
• Rotate them through core business areas to build breadth, visibility, and influence.
• Design flexible work policies that enable growth, not limit it.

Shift culture

• Challenge stereotypes around women in tech through internal and external messaging.
• Share stories and role models that reflect the full range of leadership styles.
• Cultivate psychological safety where women can lead, speak up, and take risks without penalty.

Mentor and sponsor

• Pair women with advocates who open doors.
• Invest in networks that help women in tech share knowledge, grow visibility, and gain access.
• Encourage executives to make space at the table and bring others with them.

I’m convinced that solution lies in doing the right thing, especially when no one is watching. That means we as leaders at every level must be accountable for building environments where diverse leadership can prosper.

THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IS WOMEN-LED

What today’s digital transformation needs now is a shift: from control to trust, from silos to collaboration. These are the hallmarks of servant leadership. This is also how women consistently and naturally lead when given the space.

But this shift won’t happen on its own. As leaders, we should ask ourselves whether our decisions reflect gender diversity that drives results, whether our current metrics reward autonomy or simply reinforce traditional hierarchies, and whether we’re empowering women to lead, rather than filling quotas.

To embed women‑led, servant leadership at scale, first, ensure women occupy at least 30 percent of seats in every critical decision forum. Second, expand your digital scorecard to measure cross‑functional collaboration and team autonomy. Third, entrench these commitments in your digital “constitution” or a strategic plan that provides clear milestones, and standards that must sustain every reorganization.

Women-led transformation isn’t a trend. It’s a strategy. And the organizations that recognize this and act on it won’t just adapt to the future. They’ll define it.

Author Note

As someone who has worked at the intersection of technology and leadership for over 25 years, I’ve seen firsthand how digital transformation fails when it’s treated as a tech upgrade rather than a leadership evolution. I believe women and servant leadership bring the inclusive, people-first mindset that drives innovation, agility, and sustainable success.