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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 »

 
CIO Executive Council
A Peer-Advisory Service and Professional Association for CIOs

Webcast: In the Google Apps Cloud: How to Achieve Your Business Objectives

Dec 3rd, '09, 1 - 2 pm US/Eastern (GMT-5)

Join Council member Brent Hoag, Director, Global IT, at JohnsonDiversey, as he discusses the adoption of Google Apps which has helped meet four corporate goals; sustainability, simplification, increased employee productivity and global collaboration.

Webcast: Collaboration Initiatives: Benchmarks & Best Practices

Dec 15th, '09, 4 - 5 pm US/Eastern (GMT-5)

Join Council members Ruth Thorpe, VP & CIO at the U.S. Pharmaceutical Operations of Sanofi-Aventis, and Gary Kuyper, CIO at Bethany Christian Services, as they speak about their collaboration initiatives and experiences in how and why they chose the social networking and collaboration tools they are using and their business goals for collaboration, and facing culture change challenges.

Data Overview: Collaboration Initiatives Field Guide: Benchmarks & Best Practices

This appendix to the Council Field Guide provides an analysis which discusses benchmarks for collaboration IT implementation costs, adoption rates and payoffs. The overview identifies top IT and business goals and satisfaction rates for collaboration initiatives as well as best practices and lessons learned for implementing collaboration IT.

More / Register »

Learn more about the CIO Executive Council »



 
 
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Why Leaders Need People Skills

To lead effectively, you must be able to connect and communicate your agenda to others.

 

April 16, 2008CIO

Compassion. Candor. Transparency. A focus on family.

Twenty years ago such attributes would've been seen as a drag on a corporate chieftain's rise to the top. Today, business leaders who possess these qualities are celebrated for them in the media by the likes of Fast Company, Business Week and Fortune.

 
MORE ON LEADERSHIP
 
See all the Baldoni on Leadership columns.
 

So what's going on? Is American business going soft? Are its corporate executives turning from hard-edged and dispassionate analytic types to warm, outgoing people persons? Not quite.

Top executives are instead returning to a most fundamental tenet of leadership: the ability to connect with others in order to build trust and effectively lead in times of great challenge and change. Call it the people-skills revolution.

Attributes Leaders Need

The annual Harris Online/Wall Street Journal poll cites MBA recruiters as valuing candidates with strong communication and people skills. However, so often we see people promoted into management who have personalities ill-suited to working with others, let alone managing or leading them. The boom in executive coaching attests to the need for cultivating leaders with strong people skills.

So what kind of people skills do CIOs and other executives need to display? Psychologist Daniel Goleman, a noted academic and author, promulgated the concept of emotional intelligence more than a decade ago. Goleman defined a leader's "emotional quotient," or EQ, as being a blend of self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills. Leaders with an EQ knew themselves, exercised self-control, could motivate themselves, were empathetic, and had good people skills. All of these characteristics combine to round out a leader as one with assuredness, confidence and likability. So what do you need to do to develop those attributes?

Assuredness. Too little attention is paid to managers who know themselves and their abilities. But if you have ever worked with someone who is tentative and uncertain, you know the headaches this causes. People get frustrated as deadlines are missed due to "do-overs" of "do-overs."

Contrast this with a neatly humming department or business unit that knows what is required and consistently performs according to objective. Most often, the person in charge is one who values her people, knows them, and creates conditions and opportunities for them to succeed. As a manager, you develop your own assuredness by doing your work but also by empowering others to do theirs.

Confidence. You can consider confidence an outward reflection of assuredness. If you are secure in your estimation of your skills, you project a sense of capableness that makes others comfortable. Leaders must project confidence because it is what others expect. When we are led by another we want to have faith that the individual can do what he claims he can do. When that faith is backed by example and, better yet, by capable action, then confidence is compounded by leaders and followers together.

 
 
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Enterprise Capture: Your Onramp to Business Process Automation

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