Leadership 2003: Are Successful Leaders Born or Made?

The results of this month's research are available in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. (To download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-in, click here.)

• Are Successful Leaders Born or Made?

81% Of CIOs Believe Leadership Can Be Taught

68% Say Their Companies' Overall Quality of Leadership is High

74% Of CIOs are on their companies' executive committees

81% Cite IT/business liaison as the most critical leadership
experience

47% Have participated in leadership development programs in their current company

When you hear the word "leader," what comes to mind? More than likely, words such as "smart," "creative" and "strategic" will be high on the list. But according to the more than 750 senior IT executives who participated in this month's research survey, the really critical issues are "relationship building," "communications skills" and "inspiration." Clearly, leadership ability is a combination of personal traits and acquired skills. And rising toward the top of the list of characteristics that make a good leader: Integrity. Yet as important as integrity and personal ethics are in shaping leaders, our survey respondents also place a high value on leadership-development training programs. More than 80 percent of them believe that leadership can be taught, and a strong majority of them have participated in leadership-development programs at some point in their career. But even though our readers think highly of leadership programs, even more of them participate in less-formal methods to sharpen their leadership skills. Top of that list: reading.