CIO intangibles: 6 abilities that set effective IT execs apart [Video]

From conflict management to personal branding, today’s most successful CIOs recognize the importance of developing a blend of nuanced, less easily definable skills for an increasingly executive role.

Credit: Shutterstock / Jacob Lund

What got you here won’t get you there. That advice from executive coach and bestselling author Marshall Goldsmith has never been truer for CIOs than it is today. The technical skills, IT leadership expertise, and ability to keep the network secure and running, and even to deliver innovation aren’t enough to create success for today’s CIOs.

“When we think about where CIOs need to go, we say to them: ‘You need to be an executive first and a functional leader second,’” says Christie Struckman, research vice president at Gartner.

How exactly does a CIO become more of an executive than a functional leader? In part, by strengthening abilities that seem almost intangible because they have nothing to do with specific hard or even soft skills. These aren’t abilities that …