Yesterday we had the first session of 'Technology Leadership in a Changing World' here in Singapore. This has been a very successful programme in the UK and HK and run for many years in both places, so not so much a new programme - more a new venue.

The first session was about us preparing ourselves for leadership. Led by Dr John Kenworthy, he had us tap our inner selves and inner strengths. As we know, IT people are notoriously nerdy, and we tend to focus on others rather than ourselves, problems and solutions rather than promoting ourselves. No wonder the marketing people get the big bucks, they know how to ask for them! So what did we learn? Some key takeaways were:

How to bring our unconscious competence to the fore, and to use it day in and day out to be successful leaders
Key aspects of emotional and cultural intelligence
How to have presence

We covered a lot more in the session and will pick up on some of these themes and areas over the next 3 sessions in the next 3 months of the programme. By taking this approach with a combination of workshops and mentoring, the attendees have a chance to embed the lessons into their professional DNA.

C-suite members cite their leadership teams as one of their most critical success factors. By giving people a chance to build their leadership skills in this way, they are investing in the future success of their organisations.