Which skills are really necessary to excel as a Chief Technology Officer?
What enables one CTO to perform better than another in a given situation or role?
When looking to improve, how do you know what to focus on?
What does it really take to do this job?
I believe that skill as a CTO is an amalgamation of several dozen individual skills, each of which can be strengthened independently, and the relative value of which varies from role to role.
Team Building Skills
- Recruiting
- Attract, hire, retain the best people
- Staffing
- Having the right people and matching them to the right roles are two different things
- Team Organization
- Evaluating People
- Firing
Organization Skills
- Time Management
- Project Management
People Skills
- Leadership
- Motivation
- Diplomacy
- Advocacy
- Getting stuff approved
- Getting stuff killed
- Therapy
- Supporting people up, down, and across the org
- Emotional Control
- Empathy
- Negotiation
- Mentoring
- Teaching
- Crucial Conversations
- Bullshit Detection
Communication Skills
- Speaking
- Sub-Skill: Communicate via phone
- Sub-Skill: Communicate via video
- Writing
- Sub-Skill: Effectively use email
- Sub-Skill: Communicate via text chat
- Reading
- Listening
- Presenting
- Documentation
Technical Skills
- These vary greatly depending on the role
Creative Skills
- Product Management
- Strategic Planning
- Tactical Execution
- Innovation
- Awareness, understanding, and experience with cutting edge technologies and solutions
- Ideation
- Questioning the ordinary
- Being resourceful
Mental Acuity
- Energy
- Acting quickly
- Judgment
- Confidence in forming opinions
- Making and committing to decisions
- Situational Analysis
- How big of a mess are you in?
- How can you improve your position?
Financial Skills
- Budgeting
- Accounting
- Valuation
- Every executive should at least understand options and intrinsic value.
Facilitation Skills
- Build vs Buy
- Vendor Management
- Industry Knowledge