Building Up the Bench Olympia WA

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Originally published at Internet.com

Are successful leaders born or made? Many companies are banking on the latter. Fifty percent of CIOs polled recently said they are actively preparing IT staff for leadership roles.

Commonly cited tactics include mentoring programs (43%), management training (42%) and soft-skills training (35%). CIOs were asked, "Are you taking any steps to identify and prepare individuals on your IT staff to move into managerial roles?"

Their responses were split almost 50/50, with 50% saying they are using training to prepare staff for more responsibility and 49% indicating no such efforts are underway.

Those who answered in the affirmative also were asked to specify which of the following steps they were implementing. Their responses (in order of popularity):

* Mentoring programs * Management training * Soft-skills training, e.g., interpersonal or communication skills * Succession-planning programs * Other training/continuing education * (Multiple responses were allowed.)

Methodology

The national poll includes responses of more than 1,400 CIOs from a stratified random sample of U.S. companies with 100 or more employees. It was conducted by an independent research firm and developed by Robert Half Technology, a provider of IT professionals on a project and full-time basis.