CTO - Leadership and Coaching

It's widely understood that the CIO's job isn't just about technology anymore—it is about leadership with a human element. The most successful CIOs spend huge chunks of time educating, leading, and coaching a wide base of business stakeholders--executive colleagues, board members, business unit managers, supply-chain partners, IT staff, customers, service providers, and external regulators. (52)

This complex array of commitments is changing the CIO's role in the enterprise. Gartner Executive Programs' (EXP) CIO agenda survey said their responsibility is no longer to the IT staff alone, but rather to the business as a whole and to its customers and partners. There are now six imperatives: to lead, anticipate, strategize, organize, deliver, and measure. (52)

At the very top of the CIO's agenda is the responsibility for leadership and coaching across the enterprise. IT executives have to keep an eye on the marketplace and the long-term strategies that will keep them ahead of the competition, as well as the day-to-day operations that satisfy customers, generate revenue, and enable growth. And then they have to bring those insights to key decision makers.

As discussed previously, CIOs must know how to engage their peers at a human level. They must build and sustain personal and positional credibility by knowing their business colleagues as individuals, focusing on their agendas, communicating clearly, and simply helping them achieve business success through timely and cost-effective service delivery. It's important for CIOs to seek opportunities to support the agendas of other executives and collaborate with them. They must have a clear understanding of the key people they need to influence and find ways to support them, which can be accomplished by volunteering for assignments that afford opportunities to demonstrate a business perspective. And feedback is important for education and growth. They should conduct frequent peer reviews and set up formal and informal channels to gather business intelligence.

The leadership role also means guiding the board and top executives on how IT can enable business innovation. Some companies leverage this by increasing IT centralization to gain synergies across the business units and an understanding of how business goals are linked with the IT strategy needed to achieve them.

As part of the leadership role, CIOs need to communicate a clear vision and agenda for using IT to enable the business. It's up to them to help the team make informed executive decisions about business models and business architecture, as well as about IT governance issues for the enterprise. It's not enough just to understand business imperatives, though. CIOs also have to communicate them back to the IT organization. They need to ensure that their staff is fully aware of the enterprise's strategic direction, and link performance metrics and appraisals to that direction. It's everyone's job to effectively prioritize projects and use resources in keeping with the company's strategic goals. Strategizing means taking a more active role in shaping demand and synchronizing business and IT. Every executive has to assume responsibility for helping grow the business; they can all play their part by envisioning ways IT can help achieve growth and profitability. They can help shape the informed expectations of both business peers and the IT organization. If this coaching is done well, it helps build a real partnership between the business and technology sides of the house. That, in turn, will help synchronize investment approaches and funding strategies that support desirable behaviors. (52)

In the long run, a sound business-driven IT architecture will provide the enterprise with the right technical base to scale up critical business initiatives, especially those that cross business-unit boundaries. No strategy is complete unless it considers enterprise wide risk exposure and establishes a risk-management program designed to minimize vulnerabilities and protect the enterprise, its customers, and its shareholders.

Relentless budget pressures on IT make CIO survival dependent on effective supply-side management. This includes organizing multiple sources of supply to get the best value for your money, as well as managing IT's capability to meet business needs. The final three imperatives--organizing, delivering, and measuring--fall into this category.

While CIOs are frequently hired for their business acumen, they're often fired because of a failure--or perceived failure--to deliver on expectations. The message, then, is to ensure that you're perceived as delivering against key expectations. The first imperative is to be a professional services organization that delivers cost-effective services; attracts, nurtures, and sustains people and resources; and manages resources prudently, balancing cost and growth initiatives and ensuring that succession planning is in place. Building--or providing access to--well-targeted capabilities for agility and low cost is another key element. Set demanding timetables to deliver value. Make sure business continuity and security requirements are in place. Implement disciplined and quality-based program and project management. Source IT services strategically manage partnerships and alliances effectively.

Every company has its own challenges and markets, of course. The survey identified three business environments, each with a unique CIO agenda: fighting for survival, maintaining competitiveness, and breaking away. (52)