In your opinion, what are the most essential leadership skills needed to scale the D&A capabilities of an organization?

You need an upskilling approach that provides a platform for high performing team members to contribute

Establish a clear vision around and clearly communicate the team’s purpose, objectives, and long term goals that will keep them going

Foster a culture of collaboration that promotes ownership and autonomy

Provide feedback and recognition

Lead by example

Silver tongue. You really need to be able to “talk the talk.” We need to walk the walk too, but you could be the smartest, most effective and the most capable person in the room and never get the opportunity to showcase what you can do because you haven't won over those other people in the room. You need to be charismatic.

You have to be able to articulate a vision that's motivational. And then once you have hooked the people, you must be good at change management. You need to be a skilled negotiator because you can't fix everything all at once. You can't meet everybody's needs, and you have to prioritize and negotiate through the change.

We need better leadership - plain and simple.  I believe the entire CDO role is at an inflection point, but it's too early to know if we'll trend up, or if we'll simply fade away.  Companies are investing massive sums in digital transformations and across all areas of the D&A landscape in order to become more 'data driven', but if we continue to fail to demonstrate quantifiable value to the business through our efforts, I believe the entire CDO role could be at risk.  A lack of leadership in D&A roles is a major reason why CDO tenures are only half that of the average CIO, and this desperately needs to change.  We need to be bold, lead by example, take risks, and develop a rabid focus on the incremental delivery of value.  We must adopt more product management practices into our organizations and immediately abandon data literacy programs in favor of a focus on customer success.  We must be more collaborative, communicate more, and develop a passion for understanding the business processes our data supports.  We must be humble and we must be more adaptable.  Above all else, we must forget about being 'data driven' and become more customer driven, putting our customers and their needs at the center of everything we do.