Leadership Slideshow:
Hotshots at Work: How to Take Command

You made it to the position of CIO because, in part, you excelled as a hotshot performer on the way up. Now that you're a senior manager, you'll need to effectively lead an entire department full of potential hotshots to ensure success. The very moment that you first step into a room as the “new boss” sends a clear message to your employees – either you “have it” or you don't. And that “it” is the ability to take command – whether it is taking charge of a room, or a crisis, or a great potential growth opportunity. In an article for the McKinsey Quarterly, Stanford University's Bob Sutton says that CIOs and other top managers need this quality to effectively lead. Sometimes, he writes, it's a matter of confidence. Other times, there's a bit of smoke and mirrors involved. Here's more from Sutton – a professor of management science and engineering at Stanford, and author of the book "Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best . . . and Learn from the Worst" (Business Plus/September 2010).