IT leaders have never been more essential to the success of any organisation – or had more demands heaped upon their shoulders. So how is the role changing? And what are the skills required to step up to the challenge?

*Originally published in December 2018. Updated for 2020.

Henry Ford is credited as once saying: “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” Now, we’re not suggesting that ongoing training and development is some kind of elixir for youth, but it is true that you should never stop learning: professional development should be an ongoing process throughout your career.

*Originally published in December 2018. Updated for 2020.

Moving up in your career can be more difficult the higher up the career ladder you rise. At lower levels, progression is almost a given with solid effort and time, but something changes at the higher levels.

Here at Cranfield Executive Development, we work hard to ensure that our leadership development programmes consistently deliver the value that businesses both need and expect. We get great feedback from course participants, many of whom are only too happy to tell us about the difference attending Cranfield has made within their business and to their personal outlook and career development.

In a recent article in Developing Leaders, my colleagues Susan Vinnicombe, Hilary Harris and I discuss how organisations can successfully become more inclusive when it comes to promoting talented women into senior roles.

A generation ago when successful people reached the top of their business they were eyeing retirement. Golf and spa retreats. Now we’re working longer and reaching senior positions earlier in our lives, that’s not looking very attractive.

Standard leadership development programmes stay above the shoulders, and that’s the problem. They’re often focused primarily on the cognitive and a hard set of frameworks and matrices. People are loaded up with content and sent back into the boardroom, groggy from the weight of it.

There are many practical reasons why we spend our working lives in offices, meeting and conference rooms, but it doesn’t mean it’s doing us any good.

I was chatting to a fellow runner recently, while on our regular 5km route, about my work in helping individuals switch jobs. They expressed the frustration they experience when their organisation changes their role from underneath them. This led me to think about transitions coaching being useful for individuals to navigate organisational change, not just those undertaking key career moves.

Business success is a cycle that justifies itself. Having the skills and determination to deliver success is all that seems important on the way up. But when you reach the top as a CEO or entrepreneur, it can start to seem more like a trap - a bubble of habits and behaviours that’s holding you back.