Offering regional and national programs, CIO (and CSO) events bring together some of the most respected names and thought leaders in information technology and security. Presented by CIOs and other senior level executives, these invitation-only programs offer timely topics and strong networking. Learn More »
Public Council Teleconference: Application Rationalization — Hidden Costs and Smart Decisions
November 17 at 11:00 am US/Eastern (GMT-5)
Join Honorio Padrón, of The Hackett Group, who will share the drivers for companies to tackle application rationalization and the results of research that define the hidden cost of complexity. Additionally, we will discuss key decision milestones—to start or not, holding the course steady and fulfilling expectations.
Virtual Desktop Cost-Benefit Analysis — Michael Jacobs, Catlin Group
The analysis contained in this presentation measures the cost of everything from the machines and licenses to the infrastructure for virtual vs. traditional desktop environments.
Honor your best senior team members - Apply for the CIO Ones to Watch Award
Get well-earned public recognition for your top up-and-coming team members, your IT organization and your enterprise. Award winners will be announced, publicized and feted in May 2010, great timing to help attract new IT recruits to your company.
Learn more about the CIO Executive Council »December 01, 2002 — CIO —
We talk about crucibles and the critical role they play in shaping leaders. All our leaders, our youngest and our oldest, the geeks and the geezers, brought to their crucibles?or major challenges?four essential skills or competencies. These are the attributes that allow leaders to grow from their challenges, instead of being destroyed by them. In every case, the quality most responsible for their successful navigation of these formative experiences was their adaptive capacity?an almost magical ability to transcend adversity, with all its attendant stresses, and to emerge stronger than before. Every one of our leaders had three other essential qualities as well: the ability to engage others in shared meaning, a distinctive and compelling voice, and a sense of integrity (including a strong set of values).
The terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001 seemed to call forth just that sort of greatness. Snatched out of harm’s way immediately after the assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President George W. Bush did not get off to a distinguished start. "Where is the president?" people wondered, and understandably so. But in a matter of days a president with an uncertain mandate and a less-than-memorable oratorical style had found his voice. On Sept. 20, Bush gave a half-hour speech to Congress and the nation that approached greatness.
The fact that we repeatedly see our leadership model at work in the world bolsters our confidence in its validity. The president’s speech showed all four essential competencies of leadership: the adaptive capacity that allowed President Bush to turn even his usual verbal awkwardness into a strength, a newly found and compelling voice that allowed him to engage an entire nation and its allies through shared meaning and common purpose, and moral conviction gave his condemnation of the attacks the force of something more than political expediency.
Bad leadership can be every bit as instructive as good. We have talked about the four competencies of leadership. You can sometimes best see those qualities in their absence. Another reason for discussing bad leadership?failed leadership is a kinder term?is that there is so much of it.
Take M. Douglas Ivester of Coca-Cola. Inheriting the chairmanship on the sudden death of its esteemed, longtime CEO, Roberto Goizueta, Ivester lasted just 28 months. His grasp of context was woeful. Unlike his ethnically sensitive predecessor, Ivester failed to empathize with minority employees, so much so that he demoted the highest-ranked African-American even as the company was losing a $200 million class-action suit brought by black employees. This in Atlanta, a city with a powerful African-American majority.