“Every day I have to influence someone I’ve never met before,” says a senior executive at one technology company. “‘People skills” have long been on the must-have list for the C-suite, but senior executives today have to influence, negotiate and innovate at speed to steer their organizations through fast-changing, volatile business conditions.
This need is borne out in Gartner TalentNeuron data, which shows demand for design thinking tops the list of emerging soft (cognitive and social) skills needed by the C-suite today. Also increasingly in demand: High-tech “hard” (technical) skills needed to lead in increasingly digitalized terrain awash in emerging technologies.
