Serving a customer base that includes nearly 5.30 billion internet users requires more than thinking outside the box. It requires harnessing the power of diverse mindsets and skills to deliver smart technology solutions and services.
CMOE’s Technology Leadership Development Program aims to help tech leaders achieve that level of synergy and alignment. We are dedicated to growing your current and rising leaders by placing leadership development at the forefront of your team and organization.
Why Is Technology Leadership Development Necessary?
The tech industry is expected to grow by 5.4% in the coming year. This growth creates a need for leaders to understand effective strategies for organizational success. Each member of their team also needs to be equipped with a strategic mindset in their respective positions to help their business reach its full potential and outperform competitors.
What Qualities Make a Successful Technology Leader?
There are four key qualities that successful technology leaders embody:
1. Collaborative: Being a technology leader requires the leader to trust and empower their team to innovate and bring their ideas to fruition. Rather than micromanaging team members, tech leaders offer guidance, advice, and support. Leaders who give team members the freedom to experiment, create, and pursue calculated risks will bring more minds and voices to collaboratively solve complex problems in unique, new, and innovative ways.
2. Visionary: Successful technology leaders have an aptitude for turning a vision, or a preferred future, into reality. They have a vision statement that enables teams to establish clear goals and outline a strategic plan for achieving those goals. This may be accompanied by or linked to KPIs, OKRs or project milestones. Identifying the specific roles and responsibilities team members play is crucial in realizing the vision and achieving those milestones. Additionally, these leaders communicate the vision effectively as they seek buy-in and support from team members, peers, and key stakeholders.
3. Agile: Resilience is an essential skill for the dynamic tech field. In today’s constantly evolving tech world, being adaptive to change is a critical capability. Leaders expect shifts to occur and thus build agile strategies that allow room for continuous feedback, data analysis, and project adjustment. Moreover, successful tech leaders encourage team members to take on a proactive mindset, urging them to anticipate and plan for potential changes.
4. Communicative: Tech leaders must be well-equipped to communicate with key stakeholders. While this may seem like obvious advice, the reality is:
- Historically, there have been communication issues between technology professionals and their leaders.
- Stakeholders and others don’t often have the technical knowledge. The variety of technical jargon and acronyms further adds to communication frustrations and discomfort around the direction or status of projects.
A successful tech leader understands how to communicate with technical and nontechnical teams and customers. They adapt their communication style and language to build mutual understanding and effectively bridge communication gaps across the organization.
What Is Involved in Technology Leadership Training?
The specific components of CMOE’s technology leadership training will vary depending on the goals of your team and organization. We work with your team to identify the leadership capabilities your tech leaders need and help to provide a training solution that will close the gaps, retain talent, and secure the leadership pipeline.
Here are examples of key objectives:
Building purpose: Being a visionary and collaborative leader is key to bringing innovative technology solutions to the table. Tech leaders will walk away understanding how to craft a climate where people are empowered to innovate and improve your products, process, or solutions. The intention is to unite team members under a common purpose to create value for the customer in a way that spurs collaboration and innovation.
Drive impact: Research notes that 82% of professionals believe it is important to have a purpose, yet only half of those individuals stated that their organization’s purpose statement drives impact. Training will help technology leaders take action to set their team and organization’s purpose in motion. Leaders will also use this opportunity to link purpose to specific behaviors, actions, and choices.
Leveraging metrics to drive business objectives: Tech leaders will learn how to identify the right key metrics that align with their business objectives. They will understand how to use these metrics as a communication tool to effectively work and align with key stakeholders (technical and non-technical audiences).
Anticipate future cybersecurity risks and exposures: As the use of digital services grows, so do systems and data. Ninety-two percent of business executives believe cyber resilience is integrated into their organization’s risk management strategies. Yet only 55% of security-focused executives agree with that statement. Tech leaders must learn how to think strategically, anticipate potential threats, and develop strategies for mitigating the impact of threats. All leaders must be thinking strategically on this front.
A robust leadership development program will empower tech leaders, professionals, cybersecurity experts, and systems professionals to be the collaborative, visionary, agile, and communicative leaders that their organization needs. This includes many subsets of these skills such as:
- Leadership versus management
- Execution skills
- Problem-solving and decision making
- Communication
- Teamwork
- Coaching the next generation of professionals
Methods to achieve these personalized course objectives may include:
- A leadership-competency model designed to link unique goals with specific actions and behaviors.
- Instructor-led learning experiences, self-paced digital courses, or a blended approach.
- Simulations, exercises, and case studies to enhance the learning experience.
- Application and sustainability plans to ensure training outcomes lead to long-term results.
Ignite Confidence in Your Leaders with CMOE
As a globally trusted leadership and development partner, CMOE is looking forward to helping your technology leaders build the capability to lead technology team members and individual contributors into the future. We are ready to discuss your challenges and goals. Contact our team for more information.
