Tech leaders – you will need to take your people to the next level in 2016; master your own journey first and LQ is a powerful lens.
It’s the start of the year and the CIO has to master self before they can manage (or even lead) others. No matter what the demands of legacy, disruptive or enterprise IT you are grappling with, you need people to achieve your goals and people respond overwhelmingly more to one thing: leadership. Make these next 12 months really count by pausing first to examine yourself and then dive in to deliver the tech-value your organisation needs. [paragraph 1 of 5]
Steven Covey’s Leadership Quotient will measure your ability to lead people across 4 imperatives. How well do you; build trust with people, clarify the purpose of their activities, build and maintain organisational enablers of their success and lastly how do you develop and leverage the right skills. Some previous thoughts on each of these as you assess your own leadership ability; trust, purpose, enablers (performance management, communication) and skills. [2/5]
The New Value of CIOs in 2016 lists three barriers for IT leaders to overcome; lack of skills, limited budgets and organisational culture. Don’t be caught on the back foot as these impact you this year and if you know your LQ you can put in action plans, get help where needed and importantly – play to your strengths. This article concludes positively that there is a rising influence of the CIO who is no more “the IT guy” but becoming a trusted advisor and partner to the CEO; even more reason to invest in your leadership ability. [3/5]
An additional trend noted by the CIO.com article above is that of embedding IT into lines of business; this means CIOs are also becoming Chief Influencing Officers. Working across organisational structures, effective networking and communications as well as taking ownership outside control boundaries are all key leadership attributes that CIOs will be grappling with this year. The Ancient Greek saying “know thyself” is ever more crucial, master yourself first as a leader, who you are and then tackle what you need to do. [4/5]
Especially in large organisations, CIOs should also remember that management and leadership is not always synonymous. Management practices are derived from transactional leadership which may conflict with the progressive, trust-building style you need to build (see this article; Transactional Leadership and Agile). LQ also doesn’t define who you are – you do that every minute of every day so get out there and make those minutes count; they will add up to 12 months in a year before you know it. [5/5]
View this article on LinkedIn.
Hi Peter, thank you for the article. Even though Iam in month 8 of my FY, not to late to apply the principle.