As with so many things in life, it depends who you ask Ask a group of people what the defining characteristic of a good leader is and you’ll get a lot of different answers. I recently posed that question in Twitter, asking people to complete the sentence “Good leaders always…” Here’s what I got back. Good leaders always… listen (three people said this) treat people with respect (two mentions) communicate clearly are considerate of others solicit competing views, take time to think and then make a firm decision set the direction, then step back to support and enable the people who have to go there, letting them determine how to accomplish the vision incorporate anthropology; i.e., engage understanding, context and motivations of constituents (peer, adversary, competitor, boss, customer, etc.) inspire others have good followers I love this list! Particularly the last point, because if you don’t start with the right people on the bus (as Jim Collins likes to say), you won’t get very far. That’s why, for the fourth year in a row, we’ve produced a special report on leadership development. This year’s package begins with a probing look at the future of IT leadership, and the picture is not all that bright. As the first full-career generation of CIOs begins to retire and others increasingly take on broader responsibilities or move out of technology altogether, many CIOs don’t know who will lead IT in the years ahead, writes Michael Fitzgerald in “Finding Tomorrow’s Leaders Today.” To help you leave a different legacy, we’ve included features on both mentoring and succession planning, with lots of great lessons learned from your peers. We conclude with the list of this year’s Ones to Watch honorees: men and women who have been double-vetted by accomplished CIOs—endorsed by their bosses and then evaluated by members of the CIO Executive Council. And I guess we picked some good ones. In the months since we did the judging, at least three have received promotions. Congratulations to Tomas Gregorio, now VP and CIO at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center; Jackie Magno, SVP and CIO at SAP Business Objects; and Ed Earl, CIO at Littelfuse. If you haven’t checked out Twitter yet, please do! Four of the responses above came from IT execs. You can follow us at twitter.com/CIOMagazine. Related content opinion Website spoofing: risks, threats, and mitigation strategies for CIOs In this article, we take a look at how CIOs can tackle website spoofing attacks and the best ways to prevent them. By Yash Mehta Dec 01, 2023 5 mins CIO Cyberattacks Security brandpost Sponsored by Catchpoint Systems Inc. Gain full visibility across the Internet Stack with IPM (Internet Performance Monitoring) Today’s IT systems have more points of failure than ever before. Internet Performance Monitoring provides visibility over external networks and services to mitigate outages. By Neal Weinberg Dec 01, 2023 3 mins IT Operations brandpost Sponsored by Zscaler How customers can save money during periods of economic uncertainty Now is the time to overcome the challenges of perimeter-based architectures and reduce costs with zero trust. By Zscaler Dec 01, 2023 4 mins Security feature LexisNexis rises to the generative AI challenge With generative AI, the legal information services giant faces its most formidable disruptor yet. That’s why CTO Jeff Reihl is embracing and enhancing the technology swiftly to keep in front of the competition. By Paula Rooney Dec 01, 2023 6 mins Generative AI Digital Transformation Cloud Computing Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe