This week, CIO released their list of “Ones to Watch” honorees which is intended to “recognize the next wave of IT leaders and the CIOs that have encouraged their development.” You can read more about this in the CIO article “Secrets to Building a Deeper Bench” (registration may be required). You should read the whole article because a list like this tells you that some people are doing some things right, and you should get some ideas for things to try.
But all is not success and celebration here. The background survey also sounds a few alarm bells.
“According to a CIO Executive Council survey of 328 IT executives, which was conducted in February, there are troubling differences in outlook between respondents who said they had a shallow IT leadership bench and those who claimed a deep one. Although 52 percent of respondents say bench depth is “somewhat improving,†many companies display an alarming lack of attention to what they know are key aspects of leadership development.”
Those “key aspects of leadership development” include conflict management, political savvy, the ability to read people, dealing with ambiguity, and understanding the real power structure of the business. Those are interesting, but the report also notes things we’ve seen before, such as the finding that companies with deep benches spend more time on one-to-one mentoring than their peers.
This article comes on the heels of HR Executive Online’s coverage of the results of a study by A. T. Kearny and Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. That study provided some evidence that “homegrown CEOs” performed better than those hired from outside.
The problem with both of these articles is that they deal with only one level of the succession issue. The CIO article considers leaders who could step up to the CIO role. The HR Executive article covers succession to the CEO position.
That’s not good enough. You have to think of succession planning and leadership development as a “recruiting-to-pension” concern. Otherwise you’re allowing your leadership development to happen by accident up to a certain point. You can’t count on quality talent being there so you can develop them when you decide it’s time. If you’re going to improve your succession planning and leadership development, do it all the way down.
As usual, Ken, this is so timely. Thanks. I am so sorry I missed the book party on Saturday night…hope there will be others. Take care…Lee
“…an alarming lack of attention to what they know are key aspects of leadership development.” I’m assuming that there are people who think those key aspects are a little ‘soft,’ or something that can be developed over time, which is not always the case.