Our EQIQ approach explained:
With over 20 years dedicated to the technology leadership space and having conducted over 7,000 interviews with Senior Technology leaders, we have a deep understanding of the global talent market for CIOs, CDOs, CTOs, and other technology executives. These leaders are among the most in-demand in today’s competitive landscape, but they are also some of the hardest to evaluate. The unique blend of technical expertise, commercial acumen, and leadership abilities they must possess—combined with the ability to influence and drive transformation across organisations—requires a nuanced and rigorous approach to assessment. Our extensive experience in this niche gives us a precise understanding of what it takes to identify, evaluate, and develop technology leaders who can truly excel in these roles.
Our framework has been specifically designed for Senior Technology and Digital Leaders, ensuring a balanced emphasis on both emotional intelligence (EQ) and intellectual quotient (IQ). It acknowledges the unique demands of these roles, where the integration of technical expertise with emotionally intelligent leadership is critical for driving successful change.
The framework features a set of targeted competencies, each carefully selected to align with the specific challenges faced by senior technology leaders. These competencies are further supported by a series of contextually relevant behaviors that serve as tangible evidence of each competency in action. This approach allows for a clear understanding of how these behaviors manifest in real-world scenarios, ensuring that the assessment is both practical and applicable.
Each competency and behavior is evaluated on a scoring continuum from 1 to 5, providing a structured method for benchmarking and assessment. This rating system enables a comprehensive evaluation of leadership capabilities, facilitating targeted development plans and a clear benchmark for growth and performance measurement.
Find out more about our EQ/IQ framework
(in podcast form) with Brad and Lara.
Introducing our competencies for Senior Technology leaders
Competency: Strategic Impact
This competency is all about how leaders shape and influence business outcomes. We look for many attributes here, with the main focus on how aligned Senior Technology Leaders thinking and actions are towards the overall business strategy, and how effective they are at communicating a clear and compelling vision for this.
We assess their overall levels of executive presence, their natural authority, and their ability to instill confidence in those around them by swiftly building trust with key stakeholders.
We assess how effectively they can adapt, flex, and adjust their style to suit different situations and stakeholders, for example, influencing stakeholders that respond to a logical, data led approach, or those that require them to tap into their emotional drivers.
We assess how rapidly they can shift gears between high level narratives and intricate details, as well as their willingness to act first and seek forgiveness later, opting for bold action over permission to act.
We also look for how demonstrably they show courage and bravery in the face of challenges and pushback, and their ability to deal with failure and turn small setbacks into valuable learning opportunities. Ultimately, we look for resilience and staying power when under pressure. Please click on the video displayed for a quick explainer on Strategic Impact:
Competency: Leading Through Ambiguity
In this competency, we assess the leaders' tolerance for ambiguity, their decisiveness under pressure, as well as their ability to manage within complex, evolving, and often political environments.
We assess their ability to make confident decisions amidst uncertainty, especially in technology-dependent organisations where rapid change is the norm, as well as their capacity to synthesise information and visualise potential outcomes. This includes generating positive energy by focusing on strengths, as well as encouraging collaboration and collective problem-solving.
Leaders are also assessed on their critical questioning and problem-solving skills, particularly their ability to deconstruct complex issues, frame questions effectively, and avoid reaching premature solutions, to ensure a clear understanding of cause and effect.We assess the leader’s natural ability to instil confidence in others, even in uncertain times, maintaining a calm demeanour under pressure, as well as their ability to envision alternative scenarios and explore challenging solutions when faced with resistance.
Lastly, we assess the Leader’s ability to shift gears comfortably under changing priorities, and how they articulate the purpose of change, and convey its impact on the organisation's mission, while confidently addressing and overcoming conservative resistance from senior stakeholders.
Please click on the video displayed for a quick explainer on Leading Through Ambiguity:
Competency: Simplifying and Reducing Complexity
In this competency, we assess a leader’s ability to proactively simplify the technology landscape, whether that is in streamlining products, organizational structures, business processes, or information systems, with an aim to achieve cost savings, while shoring up core capabilities and enhancing customer focus.
We assess their ability to simplify complex issues by breaking them down into smaller, solvable problems, while also creating straightforward narratives around intricate matters, ensuring easy comprehension, and clear understanding among stakeholders, underpinned by a communication style that employs simplicity, making ideas and solutions easily digestible and workable.
We assess how leaders are able to grasp new concepts quickly, and discern critical aspects, to help create a focused approach to addressing actual issues. Overall, we assess their capacity to blend analytical capability with innovation, in order to navigate the intricate landscape of technology, ensuring efficiency, clarity, and strategic alignment with their organizational goals.Please click on the video displayed for a quick explainer on Simplifying and Reducing Complexity:
Competency: Leading and Embedding Change
In this competency, we assess the leaders ability to influence and inspire others to change, and how they align their messages with the audience, taking people with them on the change journey. We look for those leaders who can establish a robust foundation for change through personal advocacy, vision and drive, ultimately fostering a positive culture of change.
We assess those who can proactively identify and engage other senior leaders, who can support and sponsor their change initiatives.
Other key behaviours assessed in this competency include their capacity for creating an environment of accountability, instilling a sense of responsibility within their team as well as across key stakeholders.
We look at their ability to assess their organisation's readiness and capacity to embrace change, accepting personal responsibility for driving change initiatives, proactively identifying potential conflicts and overcoming resistance factors. We also assess their resilience and ability to recover quickly from difficulties.Please click on the video displayed for a quick explainer on Leading and Embedding Change:
Competency: Leading and Motivating Others
In this competency, we are looking for those who are recognised within the business as inspiring people leaders. In doing so, we assess their levels of authentic people skills, and their ability to cultivate relationships in diverse cultures and environments, thereby creating high-performing and collaborative teams aligned towards a shared goal.
Key behaviours assessed include, being adept at making swift and fair decisions concerning team members, motivating individuals to surpass their perceived capabilities, and building diverse teams that leverage different cultures and backgrounds, contributing to a rich and innovative work environment.
We also assess their capacity to provide effective political air cover for their team, shielding them from potential political fallout.
Finally, we assess their ability to delegate and empower those around them, incorporating robust succession plans in order to ensure continuity.Please click on the video displayed for a quick explainer on Leading and Motivating Others:
Competency: Social Competence
At its core, this competency involves a leader’s ability to recognise, understand, and manage their own emotions, while also being attuned to, and able to influence, the emotions of others. We believe that strong social competence is essential for fostering positive relationships and creating an inclusive and supportive work environment. One of the key areas we assess is self-awareness and emotional regulation. Leaders must demonstrate a deep understanding of their own emotions, acknowledging their strengths and areas for growth with humility and openness. We look for the leader’s ability to maintain their composure and exhibit calm authority, especially in challenging situations where emotional regulation is tested.
Empathy and interpersonal sensitivity are also critical components of social competence. We evaluate how well leaders can emphasise and connect with others, perceiving and responding to the emotions and needs of their team members. Building trust and rapport by showing genuine concern and support is essential for effective leadership.
Active listening and strong communication skills are vital aspects of this competency. We assess the leaders ability to listen attentively and patiently, avoiding distractions during interactions. We also assess their ability to consider all perspectives, listening to both sides of an argument before making judgments.
Conflict resolution and fair decision-making are other important areas we assess. We assess the leader’s ability to navigate conflicts impartially, facilitating constructive dialogues, making decisions that consider diverse perspectives, while promoting a culture of fairness and inclusivity.Please click on the video displayed for a quick explainer on Social Competence:
Competency: Technology Innovation and Transformation
In this competency, we assess a leader’s ability to reshape the IT landscape, fostering both a culture of innovation as well as process efficiency, while ensuring teams remain agile and adaptive.
We evaluate their skill in re-architecting the IT operating model, embracing a more modern and flexible architecture that allows for greater business agility, reduces costs, minimises waste, and enhances technology reusability. We examine how they have introduced lean and agile methodologies across teams, shaping digital strategies, and implementing contemporary approaches to improve scalability and performance.
We assess their track record of implementing specific approaches like data science, Business Intelligence and Analytics, to optimise processes and drive business monetisation, while also implementing cloud strategies that enhance process efficiency and cost optimisation.Please click on the video displayed for a quick explainer on Technology Innovation and Transformation:
Competency: Driving Commercial Outcomes
In this competency, we look for Senior Technology Leaders who possess demonstrable commercial acuity; leaders who ensure that technology initiatives align with business objectives, and contribute tangibly to business performance. We assess their ability in spearheading programs that scale and enhance key operational and financial metrics, with a clear focus on optimising efficiency and effectiveness.
Other behaviours assessed in this competency include a leaders comprehensive understanding of the business, spanning its core operating model, processes, and where revenue and margin optimisation is possible. We assess their capacity to create a strategy for continuous cost optimisation, and their ability to present robust business cases for IT or Digital Investments that demonstrate measurable ROI. We also assess their ability to negotiate the redistribution of cost savings in IT towards innovation.
We also assess the leader’s ability to exercise control over demand volume, minimising unnecessary consumption and spending within IT. We seek those who can exploit economies of scale and efficiently manage cross-project dependencies, while proactively identifying opportunities for system decommissioning.
Lastly, we assess those who have a track record in implementing robust supplier management governance, ensuring a disciplined and strategic approach to supplier relationships.Please click on the video displayed for a quick explainer on Driving Commercial Outcomes:
Competency: Enterprise Risk Management
In this competency, we look at a leader’s understanding of the overall risk situation in their organisation, this includes gathering information about critical business services, assets, and vulnerabilities to provide a clear picture of risk. We assess their approach to implementing practical risk management frameworks, consistent policies, controls, and indicators. We look for evidence that these frameworks are integrated into the organisation, ensuring a united and strategic approach to handling risk.
We evaluate their approach to identifying changes in the business that could increase risk, and how they encourage collaboration among teams to establish a common understanding of high-risk situations. This collaborative approach helps ensure a shared awareness of risk factors across different business areas.
Our assessment also assesses how they monitor Key Risk Indicators and real-time testing of controls. We look for evidence of seamlessly integrating risk indicators into essential IT processes and user experiences. This shows an integrated and proactive approach to risk management throughout the organisation.Please click on the video displayed for a quick explainer on Enterprise Risk Management:
Competency: Enterprise IT Leadership
In this competency, we assess the leader’s capacity to plan and implement IT strategies that benefit the entire enterprise, going beyond individual business units, territories or functions.
We assess the leader’s breadth of technology understanding across multiple IT domains, and their ability to optimise overall business value, through the development of a robust IT operating model that aligns technology capabilities and resources to key business priorities.
We also assess their ability to implement a clearly defined technology roadmap, spanning the entire enterprise, and driving continuous impactful changes in technology architecture and systems, to enhance functionality and reduce costs.
Lastly assess their ability to formulate, implement, and execute a strategic partner engagement model that enhances both service quality while also reducing costs, maximising synergies and efficiencies across business units in all areas of IT investment.