Developing leadership skills for IS professionals

After briefly discussing the changing roles of IS professionals, in this tutorial I introduce participants to some conceptual foundations of leadership on which most leadership training, education and development programs rest. A distinction is made between leadership attributes such as character, intelligence and moral courage, which may not been teachable, and leadership skills such as decision-making, conflict management and communication, which are reachable. I then present a three level skills model and a three-tier model that links self-development and self-leadership to the development of leadership skills and discuss sources of leadership training. The tutorial includes several exercises intended to help participants to gain some insight into their own leadership skills and capabilities.