Whether you’re a business analyst or a cybersecurity manager, the right skills can help you succeed in a tech leadership role. You can also use these skills to boost your resume and land an executive job.
Accounting knowledge helps analyze the profitability of an organization, while analytical reasoning can provide a framework to approach company problems. Other hard skills include strong project management abilities and networking skills.
Analytical Skills
Tech executives may work with software that requires them to analyze data and interpret information. They use their analytical skills to spot trends and develop strategies to help a company achieve goals. Examples of this type of analysis include identifying potential problems, reviewing financial data, and using statistics to understand patterns in behavior or results.
A technology executive may also be responsible for analyzing company and department budgets. He can track expenses, monitor employee salaries and calculate profits while coordinating with accounting advisors when necessary.
As the business world changes, many C-level professionals seek new and different skills to help them rise to the top of their respective industries. Understanding the most critical skills that every technology executive should possess can assist you in developing a standout resume and making a solid impression during job interviews. Review the professional summary and core skill sections on your resume to ensure they reflect the best aspects of your experience.
Leadership Skills
As a technology executive, you’ll work with people from different parts of your company and have to be able to connect with them all. Shohreh Abedi experienced technology executive communicates his vision and inspires others to follow him.
While technical skills will get you to a senior position, leadership skills will keep you there once you reach that point. Tech executives spend up to 90 percent of their time managing other team members, so it’s essential to have solid leadership skills that will help you encourage your teams, make important decisions and stay on track with long-term goals.
The best way to develop these leadership skills is to work with mentors and role models with solid track records in the areas you want to improve. Then, put these skills into practice by volunteering for projects requiring high-level leadership and building your reputation as a trusted leader within your organization.
Communication Skills
One of the top soft skills every technology executive should possess is communication. Whether chatting with a team or working on an individual project, communicating your ideas clearly and concisely is critical to the success of projects.
Verbal communication is essential, but so are non-verbal cues. The tone you use, the pitch of your voice, and where you place emphasis, among other things, can communicate emotions without words. In addition, being able to read the body language of others is an essential part of communication. Facial expressions, body posture, and hand gestures can reinforce or contradict your words.
Effective communication requires empathy and patience. People are much more willing to open up and share information with you if they feel you’re friendly toward them. For example, listening attentively and responding respectfully to their questions demonstrates that you care about what they say. You can also practice patience by limiting your interruptions and staying on topic.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is recognizing, understanding, and exploiting emotions positively. Leaders with high emotional intelligence are less stressed, better communicators, and more empathetic to their teams. They are also able to manage their own emotions and those of others.
EI consists of several components, but the concept’s core is an individual’s self-perception of emotional abilities. This includes awareness of one’s emotions, the capacity to put words to those feelings, and understanding how those emotions are related and evolve.
In addition, an individual with high emotional intelligence has a strong sense of self-management and is motivated to achieve their goals. However, determining the exact number of skills that comprise an individual’s emotional intelligence is complex, mainly because there is no validated psychological test. This makes it a difficult skill to assess in a hiring process. Self-reporting measures are often used but only sometimes provide accurate results.
